Guarding Secrets

by Pat Tucker

“Well…” She sighed hard. “I went to his house about four months after you were born. I was tired of living in that little podunk town, and thought Houston would be a good place to start over.”

  She said that with a completely straight face.

  “Wait. You did what?”

  I was stunned.

  “I didn’t stutter.”

  Visions of my meeting with DaQuan’s baby mama popped through my mind. I shook the thoughts from my head. I was not about to beat myself up over him anymore. What was done couldn’t be changed.

  As my mother told me the full sad story, I felt even more like I was destined to end up alone.

  When we finally pulled up to Pappadeaux, I was relieved. The story depressed me even more and I needed alcohol.

  The restaurant wasn’t crowded, so we were seated quickly. As we looked over the menus, I thought about the similarities between my mother’s life and mine.

  I pulled the menu down.

  “How come you never said anything about me being involved with DaQuan?”

  She eased her menu onto the table and made eye contact.

  “How could I? Look at what I did. Besides, KenyaTaye, that man may be down now, but from what I could see over the years, he’s taken better care of you from behind bars than any other man you’ve ever been with who is free.”

  I hated when people told me that. It felt like they were saying I should lay down and take whatever he dished just because he spent money on me.

  But what many of them didn’t understand was that I helped DaQuan make that money, so it was just as much mine as it was his. And as far as I was concerned, if he thought he could spend our hard-earned money on all of his other women, I needed to stop the cash flow and teach his ass a lesson.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHARISMA

  Days after I took Lena to the mall and bought our new designer bags, she had been calling nonstop. She usually only called like that when she needed something from me.

  “Charisma, my friends at work can’t stop talking about our new bags. Tell your secret new boyfriend thanks for me.”

  She sent her thanks all day after we had left the mall, later that night, and the next day. She insisted she needed to meet my secret new boyfriend because no one had ever been so generous and especially not someone she’d never met.

  She pointed out that men always showered her with gifts, and that she was accustomed to the finer things that men gave her, but it was the fact that my man had never even laid eyes on her and yet he had been so generous.

  I didn’t mind the gratitude because for years, she could hardly find anything nice to say to me, but the constant calls pinched my last nerve. I knew my cousin, and I knew she wasn’t that grateful. I also knew she was up to something.

  “Charisma, you never told me your secret new boyfriend’s name.”

  “Charisma, does your secret new boyfriend have any friends?”

  “Charisma how did you meet your secret new boyfriend?”

  “Charisma, where does your secret new boyfriend hang out?”

  A part of me wished I’d never said anything about him in the first place. I was in the break room when C.O. Scott walked in.

  “Hey, Tiny, what’s up?”

  “Nothing much; filling in for somebody who called in sick.”

  “Hey, lemme ask you something.” She turned away from the sink and looked at me. “Do you know anything about some blog From the Inside?”

  “Yeah, we try not to give it too much attention. I mean, it’s hard enough watching these guys while we in here. If they’re gonna start making us watch them in cyberspace too, somebody’s gonna have to give me a raise.”

  We laughed at her comment and I thought about being paid to police inmates on the Internet.

  “I feel you there, but who does the blog and have you ever seen it?”

  C.O. Scott looked surprised.

  “Of course! We all have. Actually, I try to check it out every few months or so. It’s this inmate Nelson Barnes, older dude. He mostly writes about his case and how he’s innocent. But I think once a month or so, he’ll feature an inmate and put a call out for pen pals to connect on Facebook.”

  My eyes grew. This was all news to me. Inmates were able to connect to people using social media?

  “I don’t know why you’re so surprised; computers are everywhere these days. You should check out his blog. It’s nothing to get all hyped about, but some people read it all the time.” The radio buzzed and Tiny picked up the call.

  “Hey, I’ll catch you later; stay alert!” she said before she dashed out the door.

  After she left, I thought about women who would hook up with an inmate on social media. Just when I considered how crazy they might be to do that, I remembered I wasn’t too far removed. Alone with my thoughts, I went back to how far I had come after I was crazy enough to follow Corey to Baylor University.

  He was a football star in high school and we were sweethearts whose story was supposed to end with a happily-ever-after. My good grades allowed me to go to any school I wanted on full academic scholarship, and I chose Baylor, because that was where Corey got a football scholarship.

  It was going to be perfect. He’d be the star quarterback and I was going to be a head-nurse. We arrived on Baylor’s campus and I loved it there.

  At first, things were close to perfect. I was away from Lena; he was away from his family; and we were together. My mother didn’t raise me, but later we connected. Corey’s home life was just as unstable as mine. For us, being away was probably best for us at that time.

  Trouble came when I got pregnant. I was sick with nervousness because nothing in our plans included a baby. And the campus was so religious; I was scared we’d get kicked out for breaking the unwritten policy about sex without being married.

  “What should we do?”

  “What do you mean?” Corey asked.

  “About the baby.”

  “Charisma. We not kids anymore. If we having a baby, we having a baby. Lots of people have babies in college.”

  I was so happy he would stand by me. Of course I had seen and heard stories that ended differently for other girls.

  “We should get married,” I told Corey. “So that when the baby comes, we’ll already be man and wife.” My eyes were wide with excitement about our future, until his next words.

  “We too young for marriage.”

  Corey didn’t even hesitate before he said it, and he didn’t seem to notice how he had hurt my feelings.

  That was the beginning of the heartbreak. Corey thought we were too young for marriage, but not too young to have a baby. Three months into the pregnancy, Corey lost the starting spot on the football team. I wasn’t showing too much just yet.

  Even though I was pregnant and overly emotional, he was downright depressed. Soon, I had to deal with my emotions and his too. He stopped going to classes in summer and nearly flunked out.

  By the time our sophomore year came around, Corey was on academic probation and suspended from the team. I had no choice but to do his school work and mine. I thought we’d be free as long as we both got a good education.

  We had a new apartment off campus and a new baby. I was happy about the baby, but so tired from doing Corey’s schoolwork and mine, my own grades started to suffer.

  I was anxious about another football season rolling around because Corey’s status on the team never improved. He stopped working out with the team and started gaining weight.

  By then, I had dropped out of school too. I was taking care of Corey and the baby. One day I left him at home with our son so I could go to a job interview. Hours later, I got back to our apartment and found an ambulance, a fire truck, and news reporters.

  Our baby had died in his sleep.

  Corey was so high, he couldn’t tell me anything about what had happened. More heartbreak was right around the corner for us, and I should have seen some of the mess coming our way, but I was too much in love to see or
even think clearly.

  “Charisma!”

  The sound of Tiny’s voice brought me back from the past.

  “You in here daydreaming? I said something to you a few times and you ain’t even answer!”

  “My bad, girl; sorry, I was thinking about something.”

  I got up from the chair. “What’s up? Somebody looking for me?”

  “No, nothing like that.” She looked toward the doorway. Tiny lowered her voice. “You hear about C.O. Sanchez?”

  “Nooo!” I whispered and rushed to the doorway. I stuck my head out and glanced up, then down the hall. When the coast was clear, I looked at Tiny and asked, “What happened?”

  “He got busted.” Tiny mouthed, “Con-tra-band!” Her eyes nearly popped from their sockets. If she was stunned by that, I could only imagine how she’d react if she knew I dealt in contraband too.

  I swallowed nervously. My stomach felt like it was being twisted in a vise, and my body stiffened. Hours earlier, I had brought in another shipment of pills, so the news that someone got caught petrified me.

  The heat that crawled up my back felt like it was gonna take me out. A worrying thought entered my head. What would that do to business?

  I needed to talk to DaQuan or even R.J. I wasn’t sure how much Tiny knew about the business, but I did know she wasn’t part of the team, so I didn’t say much to her. But I wanted more details about Sanchez.

  I mulled it over for a few seconds, and then asked anxiously, “How you know for sure?”

  Tiny shifted her gaze from the door, then back to me.

  “It’s all everybody is talking about.”

  That explained why I was clueless. I didn’t talk to, or socialize with any of those heifers. Dunbar, Edwards, and Bishop were nothing but trouble waiting to happen, so I did my best to avoid them. Besides, Dunbar ran those two, and since she didn’t like me, that meant the other two stayed away from me.

  The only time I communicated with Dunbar was when I needed to make a drop or get my money, and even those times were too much for me. Since she was the sergeant on our shift, it was hard to move around like that, but that was what worked best for me.

  “So, what happened? How’d he get caught?”

  Tiny’s eyes were still touched with alarm as she told me what she had learned.

  “From what I heard, his backpack was left near the front gate and Richards walked up on it. Come to find out when Richards and a guard opened it, they found two switchblades, a smartphone, two electric razors, a lighter, a set of portable radios, two cartons of cigarettes, and two packs of cigars.”

  “Wait. What?” I pulled in a deep breath and prayed for restraint. “How the hell was that him getting busted?” I thought she meant he was caught as he walked into the building or something.

  “Girl, the backpack had his wallet in it too,” Tiny said.

  That was it?

  I shook my head. “Oh hell, no! I’d fight that.”

  Tiny looked at me like I had suddenly developed a third eyeball.

  Little did I know then, a real fight of my own was in my near future.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  KENYATAYE

  “I only wanted you to have better and more than I had. It’s why I started with your name. I’m Mary. That’s plain and boring. I knew what my life would be like, but with you, I had a chance to do it all different and better. I started with your unique name.”

  After talking to my mom, I started to think back to my failed relationships. She may have wanted more and better for me, but the fact that I didn’t want more for myself led me to DaQuan. How was it possible that I had made the same kind of mistakes with men that she had made with my father?

  The thought messed me up in the head. Being attracted to unavailable men had somehow become hereditary in our family. My sick day turned into three. That was the most I could take before I’d have to get a doctor’s note.

  During those three days, I didn’t take a single call from anybody associated with Jester. DaQuan called like crazy, and so did Edwards and Bishop. But I never answered. I wanted to give him a taste of what it would be like without me. When I turned the phone back on, it went crazy with text and voicemail messages.

  I only turned the phone on, when I decided to go back to work. There was something different about the place when I walked in. Maybe it was the fact that I had been gone for three days and didn’t want to come back.

  “Damn Dunbar, you a sight for sore eyes,” Franklin’s corny butt said.

  “Hey,” I said as I dragged myself into the guards’ booth. It was crowded in there.

  Edwards and Bishop greeted me, with wide grins. When that trick Jones turned to look at me, I caught a glimpse of her wrinkled forehead, and the smirk on her face. I wanted to do an about-face, and then leave.

  But I wouldn’t give her the pleasure. My days off had done nothing to ease the hate I felt toward her.

  “Damn, girl! Where you been?” Edwards asked.

  She looked genuinely happy to see me. She and Bishop rushed to my side.

  “We gotta get you caught up! Why you ain’t answer your phone?” Bishop asked. “We need to talk.” Bishop’s lips didn’t move when she said that last part, but her eyes shifted toward Jones. I knew exactly what she was trying to say.

  “I needed some time to clear my head.”

  Jones knew better than to say a single word to me. She sat there and tried to act like she was so focused on a report. But I knew she was taking it all in.

  Two other C.O.s talked in hushed voices to my right, but I didn’t give a damn what had happened while I was away.

  “A lot went down while you was sitting poolside sipping fruity cocktails,” Franklin interrupted our reunion to say.

  The three of us turned to him, and shot daggers with our eyes.

  He threw up his hands in mock defense, and took two steps backward. He was always so extra.

  “Okay, okay, I get it. We can get to all that later; you hens obviously got other more important gossip to share.”

  The other two C.O.s left behind Franklin. When we turned, Jones sat there like she hadn’t heard a thing because she was so focused on her own little world.

  She disgusted me. I walked over, but Edwards jumped up to block my path.

  “This ain’t the time. You missed a lot; let’s go outside for some air,” Edwards said.

  “Yeah. All of a sudden, it stinks in here,” Bishop said.

  I took a deep breath and told myself, taking a flashlight to the back of Jones’s head wouldn’t solve my problems. Edwards wouldn’t move.

  “She ain’t worth it,” Edwards repeated.

  Her words made sense to me, and I knew she was right. But I had risked everything only to have a fat bitch come in and take it all without even trying. Jones deserved a cracked skull for that, if not something worse.

  Bishop moved toward the door.

  “Come on; if we leave now, we might be able to take a twenty instead of fifteen.”

  My eyes were glued to the side of Jones’s head. She didn’t look a bit bothered by what had unfolded around her.

  “Yeah, we really need to talk; something happened while you was sick. That’s more important.”

  Edwards tugged my arm and nudged me away from Jones.

  We were almost out the door, when Jones turned and said, “Whenever you ready, just remember ain’t nothing but air and opportunity between us, because I already know who’s gonna be left standing.”

  Unable to control myself, I rushed in her direction, only to have Edwards’s grip tighten on my arm.

  Bishop flew back in and jumped in front of Jones’s seat. “Girl, bye!” she barked in Jones’s direction. “Let’s go, Dunbar; let’s go! This bitch don’t want none.”

  All of a sudden, Jones started to laugh. The kind of laugh the villains did in movies. The three of us stopped, and looked at her.

  When my stomach couldn’t take anymore, I turned and walked out of the guards�
�� booth. Edwards and Bishop followed me and some inmates stared as we passed. We could hear her stupid laughter all the way to the back of the building.

  “That bitch is touched,” Edwards said.

  I opened the door and we walked out into the searing sunlight.

  “Yo, Dunbar!”

  Temporarily blinded by the brightness, I pulled my arm up to my forehead. It was R.J.

  “DaQuan say meet him in the closet.”

  I froze.

  My girls looked at each other, then at me.

  “We can do this later,” Edwards said.

  “Yeah,” Bishop added.

  “Nah. It’s all good.” I looked at R.J. who had caught up to us, and said, “Tell him I’m busy right now; maybe later.”

  I turned and left only to stop a few steps later. Edwards, Bishop, and R.J. all stood and stared at me. Their mouths hung to the ground.

  “C’mon! We only got twenty minutes.”

  Edwards and Bishop left R.J., and we walked out to the edge of the farm. We saw trustees in the distance and a couple of C.O.s on horseback, watching the trustees work. Besides them, we were the only ones out there.

  “Sanchez got caught the other day. The contraband he had was confiscated and he was arrested,” Edwards said.

  “Wwwhat?”

  “I kept trying to call you,” Bishop whined.

  “You should’ve left me a message or something.”

  “Really? Saying what? Should I have left a voicemail saying Sanchez was just busted and now our smuggling business is on the line, please call me back? We don’t know who knows what, whether they tapping our lines or what,” Edwards said.

  I sighed.

  “Tapping cell phones?” I asked like it was the most ridiculous thing I’d heard.

  Edwards cut her eyes at me. “I ain’t trusting shit. All this new technology that keeps popping up; you can’t make me believe they can’t listen in on our cell phone conversations if they wanted to.”

  What she said made complete sense.

  “So where is he? Sanchez?”

  “He was arrested, right there outside the booth in front of everybody. The shit just got real!” Edwards looked spooked.