“You’ll be coming home soon,” he cooed into the receiver. “Mommy is excited about seeing you, too. I love you, too.” Then he clicked off. To me, he snarled, “Satisfied?”
I stopped at the door and turned to him again. “I found some pictures of Travis in your desk. Who took them?”
He showed a flash of surprise. He walked toward me and started closing the door as I backed out. “Nareece had them taken. She’s always kept an eye on Travis one way or another.”
Now I flashed surprise, as he closed the door between us.
CHAPTER 10
As soon as we got in the car, Dulcey started in on me while I drove.
“Muriel, I love you, but you have got to wake up where Reece is concerned. All these years, you think she’s been angsting over Travis. She’s hidin’ something. Girl, open your eyes. Or is it that you’re afraid of losing Travis?”
“My eyes are wide open, and no, I’m not afraid of losing Travis. This is about Reecey.”
“That’s the M put on God’s beautiful earth to kick butt. Can’t nobody put nothin’ over on my girl.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. We laughed uneasily, still shaken by the day’s events.
“I am concerned that Travis won’t understand. What if he can’t forgive either one of us?”
“Travis is the most sensitive, gentle young man I know. He definitely picked up on the best parts of you. He’ll be all right. As a matter of fact, he’ll be just fine.”
We decided leaving in the morning was best. Dulcey’s fall had stomped her. Anytime she’d let me drive when we were in a car together, I knew something bad was up. Before we reached the hotel, I stopped for some ibuprofen and a bottle of Macon-Villages. Dulcey limped into the room with my help and sat down gingerly on the bed. I pulled off her shoes and socks, propped up some pillows and settled her, then got a glass of water and two of the ibuprofen pills. She had dozed off by the time I got back to her. I hated waking her, but she needed the pills. She attempted lifting an arm and groaned in protest. I sat on the bed and fed her the pills with water, then waited until she fell asleep again, or so I thought, before I eased off the bed.
“Don’t be tiptoeing around like I’m a sick patient. I’ll be fine in the morning,” she said.
“Sleep, girl.”
I opened the wine and sat at the table that was squished between the end of the beds and the wall. I clicked on the television, which hung on the wall directly over the table. It didn’t take more than five minutes for Dulcey to get her snore on, the clashing of her nose and mouth drowning out any hope of hearing the television even at such close range.
I went into the bathroom and called Travis. Music and laughter from the other end of the line filled my ear.
“Shut up, y’all,” Travis commanded, his voice muffled from covering the phone, I assumed. Then, clearly, “Hello?”
I took a sip of wine and a deep breath.
“Hello?” he said again.
“Having a party, are we?”
“Hey, Moms. I invited a few of my boys over to watch the game.”
“No drinking or drugs.”
“Ma, I’m not stupid. I got this.”
“I know you got this. It’s what you got that worries me.”
“Damn, Ma. You talk like I’m a problem child of some sort. Chill. We’re just having a few beers.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Sorry.”
A few moments of reconciliation passed. Cheers went up and the announcer’s voice, describing the scene, trailed through the receiver.
“Oh yeah, Ma, I found an envelope addressed to you under the table by the front door.”
“Under the table?”
“Yeah, Sam dropped a glass and I was cleaning it up . . .”
“Who’s the sender?”
“No name, just yours printed on the front.”
I wanted him to open the envelope, but my gut said no. I instructed him to put it away. Travis reassured me there was no weed or hard alcohol, before singing “I will always love you” and clicking off.
The envelope made me think about all that was happening. It had been three weeks since Nareece had called me, all panicked about the envelope she’d received addressed to Carmella Ann Mabley. Since then, my front door had flown open by mysterious means, Laughton had acted like a total fool, Calvin and I had almost been killed, someone had broken into Nareece’s house, and John had followed Laughton’s example and acted like a total fool.
A glance in the mirror made me do a double take. My eyes were puffy and bloodshot and my hair stuck out in every direction. I looked whipped. I sat on the side of the tub and filled it with hot water and hotel-issued bubble bath.
A quick check of my cell phone showed it was 12:17 a.m., too late to call the hospital to check about Calvin. My heart fluttered, my breaths came in short bursts, and chills shook my body at the thought that Calvin might never regain consciousness. I undressed, slipped into the tub, and let the tears flow.
Calvin was the first man in twenty years I’d felt anything for other than . . . Laughton. “Oh God.” All these years, falling in love, caring, wanting, needing any man was not my game. Singlehood worked for me. Who am I kidding? Calvin—three months and I was hooked, flat-out in love. Crazy. Especially since Laughton still held major landscape in my heart. I tried to imagine life with Calvin, the rest of my life. I let the visions move through the darkness behind my eyelids. My breathing slowed, the tears dried.
I dozed off and didn’t know how much time had passed when my cell phone rang, causing me to flail around helplessly in the cooled water until I had my wits about me. I cracked my neck and back and leaned forward, trying to get to an upright position. My phone was a little more than an arm’s length away on the bathroom sink. I got to it too late. When I did, Nareece’s name showed as the missed caller. I hurriedly dried off and wrapped a towel around me against the chill of the cold water and the rude awakening. Then I picked up the phone and pressed Call Back just as it rang again.
“Reece?”
“Hi, M,” she said.
“Hi, M? That’s all you can say? Where the hell are you?”
She made a sucking noise and squeaked out, “I want to tell you. So much . . . I . . . I need some time . . . I’m okay, though, so don’t worry.”
I had heard those exact words from Laughton. What the hell?
A few moments of silence followed before the transformation to a harsh tone came, as though an alter ego took over, a remake of John’s episode. She said, “I’ll call you when I can, when we take care of things. Don’t worry, John and I are having some problems, but we’re good. Go home, M.”
“Reece, tell me what’s going on. I’m sure there’s something I can do to help you guys get through whatever it is you’re having problems with. Just tell me.”
“I love you,” she said and clicked off.
One minute, I wished she would kick me to the curb, and the next she was kicking me and I was squirming around like roadkill. “Reecey, Reecey, what are you doing?”
We left the hotel at 6:30 a.m. since both of us had been awake since five. And when I told Dulcey that Reece had called, she popped up ready to go. She was feeling better; at least she was not so bad as to let me drive. Like I said, she thought I was the worst driver in existence.
“Don’t you even think about driving, girl. You better get over to the other side of this veeehicle,” she squawked as she motioned me to the passenger side and got in the driver’s side.
I welcomed the direction, since the night had allowed me only pieces of sleep. I called Travis to check on the aftermath. I woke him, which meant the conversation would be one-sided and he wouldn’t remember anything I said. I did get him to tell me he’d put the envelope he found in my nightstand.
When I clicked off, Laughton rang in.
“Muriel Mabley,” I said, attempting a nonchalant manner.
“Ms. M and M. What’s goin’ on?” Laughton slurred.
“The real question is, where are you?”
“I told you I was going to Boston for a few days.” I waited for a response, but got only heavy breathing. “Are you loaded this early?”
“Miss M, you are . . . were, the best partner a guy good . . . could have. I wouldn’t want to work the force with any other.” He chuckled. I heard him drag on a cigarette and exhale before speaking more. “We’ve been somethin’ together, M. Things weren’t supposed to end up like this. I didn’t know.”
“Know what? End up like how? Laughton, you’re talking trash. You’re drunk or damn near.” He stayed silent. “I’m on my way back now. I’ll call you when I’m close. Get some coffee.”
I clicked off. “I think everyone’s losing their ever-lovin’ minds. Nareece is talking trash, Laughton’s talking trash. I’ve never experienced this side of him before. We’ve spent practically every day of our lives together for the past seventeen years, and I don’t have a clue who he is right now.”
“Wait a minute, back up. What letter were you askin’ Travis about?”
“When I talked to him last night, he said he’d found a letter under that little table right inside the door. It had just my name written on the front . . . I’m thinking it’s like what Nareece got.”
“Well, what did it say?”
“I wasn’t gonna tell him to open it!” I screeched like she must be losing her mind if she thought I would ask Travis to open the letter with Lord only knew what its contents were. I settled a bit. “I told him to put it away, so I was asking him where it was in case he isn’t home when we get there.” Seemed like Dulcey was speechless since she didn’t respond, just stared straight ahead like she was fixed on driving. Speechless has never been a descriptor for Dulcey, so I knew her concern ran deep.
“I wanted to tell Laughton all that’s going on, but he’s acting like a crazy man. All of a sudden I don’t have a clue who he is. I feel like I’ve lost my other half, for chrissakes.”
“I know, girl, you think you know them, and then bam, they’re somebody totally different. Stab you all up in the heart,” Dulcey said.
“This isn’t about anybody’s heart.” It goes way deeper, I thought.
Dulcey grunted for emphasis. “Y’all might not be doing the nasty anymore, but the nasty is definitely doing y’all.”
I ignored her innuendo. Dulcey was like a hound dog—once a scent filled her nostrils, there was no holding it back from finding its mark.
“Seems like there’s a place and a time for you and Mr. Laughton. Might not be right now, but time . . .” She trailed off. I changed the subject.
“I should have gotten Reecey some real help when it happened.”
“She probably wouldn’t have done what she was supposed to anyway. That just wasn’t, isn’t her way.”
“I know. She always wants things her way. Doesn’t listen to a word I say. It might have been different if I’d moved to Boston with her. But nooo, I had my career.”
“Shoulda, woulda, coulda, girl, stop. Besides, she didn’t want you up under her. You did the best you could, now stop talking nonsense and start thinking about what to do now. What’s done is done. Besides, like I keep telling you, ain’t nothing wrong that some growing up can’t fix. It’s good for a change she’s not running to you to get her outta trouble, or crying about . . .” Dulcey stopped talking and checked the rearview mirror. “I think someone’s tailing us. Hold on.”
She made a sudden right turn across three lanes to exit the Massachusetts Turnpike, Exit 12, slamming me against the door. She checked the rearview mirror again and sped down the ramp through the toll booth. The Fast Lane light flickered green. At the end of the ramp, Dulcey cut off a pickup truck veering from the left to the right lane. She banged a right turn, sped down three blocks, and turned right into a Super Stop & Shop parking lot, stopping between a minivan and a pickup truck, blocking the sight of us and them.
Dulcey’s chest heaved. “Black SUV. A Range, I think,” she said, taking a deep breath, trying to slow her breathing so she could talk. “That veehicle has been behind us since we got on the turnpike. Just didn’t seem right. Made every lane change I made.” Dulcey put her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes.
“Did you see who it was?”
“No.” She lifted her head, gathering her pocketbook and keys in the same motion. “I don’t know, girl, probably nothing. All this craziness is making me crazy.”
“Good work, Ms. Dulcey,” I kidded halfheartedly. “I think you lost them . . . whoever them was. But your driving can scare the crap outta a body.” What had really scared me was the sudden recollection that Jesse Boone had driven off from the courthouse in a black Range.
“Let’s get some coffee,” Dulcey said, ignoring me. We were out of the car and about to step away from the protection of the minivan and pickup truck when Dulcey blocked my steps.
“There’s the car,” she said, nodding in the direction of a black SUV that had pulled to the corner and signaled for a left turn. It was quick—I mean, I turned to look at the car when it was almost at the corner, almost past my point of vision, before Dulcey pulled me back into the shadows. Then it replayed in my head in slow motion—that same crooked smirk that had chilled me to the bone in the courthouse. I could have sworn . . . no . . . yes, Jesse Boone in the passenger seat, his beady eyes flitting around, looking for something or someone. Us, maybe?
Dulcey motioned me forward. “C’mon, they’re gone.” I froze, not ready to step from behind our wall of protection. If I thought for a moment that I had not been a victim, that somehow I had stepped over that emotional stain, the moment ended right then.
“You saw him, didn’t you?” I said, almost whining. I straightened up, cleared my throat, and repeated, “You saw him?!”
“That’s who I thought I saw, too. But what would Jesse Boone be doing in Boston? That’s just nonsense. We’re definitely losing it.” Dulcey took my arm and guided me into the Stop & Shop to the Dunkin’ Donuts. She ordered a regular for her and a black coffee for me.
Back at the entrance, we scoped the area for a few minutes before venturing out.
My cell phone rang as Dulcey made the turn to get on the Massachusetts Turnpike heading home again. It was the hospital. Calvin had woken up.
CHAPTER 11
A lighter air fell over me with the news about Calvin. I tried calling his room, but I got no answer. First stop back in Philly, after I cleaned myself up, the hospital.
“We were definitely being followed,” Dulcey said. “Not to worry, though. I got your back, girl.” She cackled and started again. “Like that time I got shot saving your behind. Man thought he had you until I smacked him down. God stepped in when he pulled a gun and it jammed.”
My girl should have been a cop. She could sniff out a bad situation, size it up, make a plan, and carry it out in one swoop. Did I mention she was fearless?
“If you had stayed in the car like I told you to, everything would have worked out just fine,” I said.
Dulcey came back with a vengeance. “If I had stayed in the car like you told me to, you’d be dead. Things happen for a reason, M. Besides, if that no-good husband of mine had taken care of his own mess . . . but you know, drugs do you like that. You mess with the drug man’s money, you pay the price. I’m not saying he deserved to be half beat to death, but you reap what you sow, and Hamp is so hardheaded.”
The only time Dulcey got teary-eyed or quiet for any length of time was when she was talking about her husband, Hampton. She’d gone through hell with him after he lost his job and got hooked up on crack, but nothing and nobody could squash her love for him, including him. Hamp was one of those guys drowning in good intentions, always trying to do the right thing and ending up in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people for whom he was trying to do the right thing. That said, the man was truly a sweetheart.
After a while she said, “I’ma ask you agai
n, you think Reecey is somehow involved with drugs?”
“Mmm.” For once she didn’t push. I turned my attention to the outside and got lost in the abstractedness of the passing scenery. I hardly paid attention to Reecey until Ma and Dad died. Then Mount Everest loomed between us, Reecey on one side, me on the other. She was the drama queen: sixteen going on forty, drinking, smoking weed and whatever else, looking like a hoochie mama. She needed more time than I gave her. She needed a parent.
Hell, I had just started in the Unit, a last chance to get my act together after two years spent undercover for a special task force to infiltrate the Black Mafia that damn near killed me. I was recruited when I first joined the force, not because of any special talent I possessed; rather, my youth, gender, and color matched their need. I was stupid enough, or ambitious enough or insecure enough—no, stupid enough—to accept the assignment.
For two years I siphoned information to the task force that helped them slam the Mafia and work toward putting key figures away. Then my cover was blown. Those key figures I was working to put away made me an example. They filled my veins with heroin for weeks and then left me for dead in some garbage-filled driveway surrounded by the Richard Allen Hole—what folks called the Richard Allen Homes public housing project—in North Philly. But by the grace of God I stand.
Anyway, keeping up with Nareece’s life then when I was struggling to save my own, did not register on my agenda. Even with Dulcey’s help, Nareece was out of control. Our conversations always escalated to screaming contests about her nonperformance in school: drinking, smoking, not eating, coming home at all hours or not at all. Always, in the end, she stormed up the stairs and threw out the last words, “I hate you!”
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