On that particular night I remember waking up to the sound of clapping. Curious about what was going on, I slowly parted the peach vinyl curtain that draped from the bottom of the sink to the floor. My nose wasn’t but a hair’s breath away from some man’s bare, wrinkly, hairy, sweaty, hanging man danglys right in front of my damn face as he slid in and out of my momma.
I instantly felt sick to my stomach and lightheaded. If Mona hadn’t come knocking on the door, I might have passed out landing face first into a threesome with my own mother. Ugh. Nothin’ would ever take those memories away; they’re an oil stain on the concrete driveway of my brain. To this day the color peach was a tainted, sinful, filthy color and I couldn’t stand the cloying, flowery scent of Anais Anais perfume.
“Reena, Momma has a problem,” Mona tried explaining later as she held me in her lap, rocking me back and forth. Mona had realized I was upset when Momma finally came home and didn’t have a birthday cake or a single present. I’d run off upset and she knew exactly where to find me, unlike my sorry-ass momma.
The problem was Momma was always good for tripping over her heart and landing all the fuck up in some man’s lap. When the last “daddy stunt double” she brought home said he wasn’t really feeling kids, well, Momma was so caught up in the rapture of love that she tucked tail and ran right on up out of there with his ass. They just rode off into the damn darkness like it was nothing. I say “darkness” because that’s what happens when the light bill doesn’t get paid; there ain’t no sunsets to look forward to. After she left we were introduced to Mr. Late, Final Notice, Overdue, Collections, and best of all good old Mr. Eviction Notice.
My sister Mona was nineteen and working part time at the shirt factory in between losing her damn mind the winter that I met Ray and I was going on seventeen. He was hell-bent on making something out of his life and at that point I was just hell-bent.
I was volunteering or more like “voluntold” to work at the free clinic as punishment for shoplifting. It was one of those drab gray winter days where the sun sits like a block of ice in the sky, and the wind’s so cold it makes your lips burn. I’d been pissed all week about Mona selling my pea coat at the flea market that Sunday. If I weren’t trying to keep my record clear over that shoplifting shit, I would’ve whooped her ass and gotten myself a new one off that five-finger discount.
Inside the clinic I took up my usual position behind the reception counter ready to read and reread the articles in my Ebony magazine. It must have been too much for me to ask for a peaceful day. Glancing up I cringed as a woman staggered in through the door toward the front desk where I sat. Before I could even open my mouth to ask her what she needed, he walked, no, let me rephrase that, he glided in not far behind her. I’d heard about pimps bringing in their girls for the free STD treatments but I’d never actually seen or dealt with one. The entire concept of giving up hard-earned money to someone else for no reason completely baffled me anyway.
His floor-length mink fluttered around him in a fur cloud as he sauntered toward me with a smirk on his face. There were so many diamonds on him I damn near had to squint as the lights shimmered off of them in various directions.
He leaned onto the receptionist desk like he owned it, a tea-tree stick hanging out from the corner of his mouth. He was so close my eyes started to water from the pungent minty scent as he chewed it casually.
“Let me tell you how you’re doing today.” His voice was smoother than a baby’s ass and equally as soft as he continued. “You finer than fine china, eating off paper plates every night. I already know I’m right, because wrong ain’t an option. You been misguided, because somebody sold you a blank map to life, when all you really need is someone to map your life out. Let me get you off this road to nowhere and into show-where. Ho-where. Ho territory making that prime ho fare.”
This fool couldn’t be serious. “I think your lady friend over there needs help.” Frowning, I gave a quick nod toward her. She was leaning against the wall looking worse by the minute.
He didn’t even glance in her direction. “Business first, ass last. That’s rule number one.”
“Well, I don’t think she’s interested in doing any kind of business so you can check in or leave.” Ray’s voice was a deep road block in Frankie’s map.
“You know you’re addressing Frankie the Ambassador Diamonds, young blood?” Frankie straightened slowly, his jaw flexing around the chew stick.
“I know who I’m talking to, but your title doesn’t mean anything to anyone outside of the broken women you exploit.”
Frankie Diamonds stared straight past Ray as if he didn’t even exist. He flung the lapels of his coat behind him and marched toward the door, angrily yanking the girl up by the arm on his way out.
Up until that point Ray had all but ignored me anytime we were stuck working together. He was quiet and stayed lost in his head, but there was always something about him that stood out from all the idiots who catcalled at me all day. He was a Venus flytrap in a garden of geraniums and I just had to know if I put my finger next to him . . . near him . . . on him . . . would he snap. And, snap he did.
It was as if I’d been sleepwalking through life ever since the day Momma left us, and being with Ray was electrifying. He was that feeling you get when you dream you’re falling and you jerk yourself awake. I wasn’t about to tell him that though, couldn’t have him thinking he had me all wrapped around his little, middle, and index fingers. Even though he did. Truth was I didn’t have to tell him anything. Anyone looking at us could see it written all over our faces and in our body language. Our souls were mirrors of the other and it was seen and felt no matter what we did. You’d think working in a damn clinic with mounds of birth control at our disposal we’d use it, and we did. But it only takes that one time to get caught up in the moment, and it’s a wrap.
His parents eventually found out through the gossip grapevine of nosey-ass neighbors and store owners that we were seeing each other and they had him moved into a new intern position. They’d been molding him to follow in their footsteps and they damn sure weren’t about to let him get mixed up with anyone that might get him off track; especially, not with someone like me. Ray managed to sneak across town to see me throughout my entire pregnancy. He was probably more excited about the baby than I was.
The problem with young, stupid love is that you never realize you’re being young and stupid while you’re in it.
When I finally went into labor it was a muggy summer day in August. Mona was in jail for breaking and entering and my damn water broke while I was on a bus of all places. When Ray got to the hospital I’d already put his name on the paperwork and dozed off. Not long after he’d arrived a roar started in the hospital lobby that burst into my hospital room in the form of two angry parents.
“What the hell is this, Ray?” his momma fumed; her face was damn near bright red she was so mad.
Ray was seated in a chair in the corner holding an ice pack to his neck.
“Son? Answer your damn mother. How could you go against what we said? We forbade you to deal with this girl, and now look at the mess you’re in.” Ray’s daddy was pacing back and forth, his long legs covering the length of the entire room in three steps before he was turning to repeat the process.
I couldn’t take it anymore; my body hurt and I was dead-ass tired. They acted like I wasn’t the one who had just done all the fuckin’ work.
“Excuse me; Ray is still a little fuzzy from his head hittin’ the floor. He kinda passed out a few minutes ago. If the two of you would please stop yelling and just sit down, the nurse will be back in a few minutes and you can meet your grandbabies: Rasheed, Rayshon, and Rosalyn.”
Chapter 28
Momma’s Maybe, Daddy’s Baby
It was as if a game of freeze tag had ended and everyone could move again.
“Michelle, can you let my sister go please?”
“Sister?”
“Michelle, let me fuckin’ go,” she
squeaked.
I tightened my grip. “So why you ain’t say anything to her at Ruby Tuesday’s when she was sitting behind us, Devon? She was right there, squakin’ at Rasheed, remember?” I asked him sarcastically.
Devon took a step toward me with his hands out and I tightened up. The orderlies were all over the place corralling the crazies, but I kept an eye out for one just in case.
Devon sputtered nervously, “I honestly didn’t see her, didn’t recognize her voice or anything, Michelle. They were behind us remember. You’re tripping right now.”
“You really wanna call me crazy again, boy?” I gave him that look that said when and if we got home it was goin’ down, and not the type of going down that he’d appreciate.
Shiree tapped my arm. “Chelle, he probably ain’t know it was me; my ass had laryngitis. I swear on my life. I was up in there coughing and everything. You had to have heard me.”
“I really didn’t know. I swear I ain’t know it was her, Michelle.” Devon said looking at me pitifully.
I looked down at Shiree, in her tight sundress, there was nowhere to hide a weapon except for up in her snatch.
I wouldn’t even put that past these trifling-ass heffas these days.
I let Shiree go, throwing her away from me so she’d lose her balance and she fell into Devon. They were both scowling at me and in turn I scowled right the hell back.
Devon looked between me and Shiree and started laughing. “She gotta be a keeper if she can whoop my sister’s mean ass.”
Reena wandered back off and was busy humming back into her rosebush.
Shiree watched Momma walk away. “Sounds like old Reena was getting it in.” She laughed and asked, “What she say all them damn babies names was?”
“Rasheed, Rayshon, and Rosalyn; damn, even I caught that and I had you in a choke hold. She was stuck on them Rs, must’ve had a Reese’s. I think they’re wrooooong. I don’t like any of ’em. But that’s just me.” I laughed.
Shiree hit the ground. Devon swayed where he stood. I was the only one laughing.
Uh oh. Whatever it is, it ain’t gonna be good.
“My first name is Rayshon. My dad raised me, Shiree, went to Grandma’s. I remember him and Melanie arguing about another little girl he had that went there too, but I never met her. I went to Great Uncle Lowell,” Devon whispered.
The orderlies helped Shiree sit up and she looked a myriad of emotions that I could never begin or even want to understand or explain.
“First thunderstorm. I can hear it already. Y’all hear that? ‘How sweet the sound . . .’” Reena asked in a singsong voice, before bellowing out her haunting, memorable rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
We all looked up; there wasn’t a single cloud in the damn sky.
We were all sitting around the kitchen table silently, with grim, somber faces. No one really wanted to say what the others were thinking or feeling. It was as if we’d drank and partied, finally waking up hung over. Each of us in bed with someone we knew but didn’t really know, remembering what we’d done or did with and to each other. Reena was a mouse trapped in a maze of memories. She’d find her way out only to go get lost again.
“Why did she keep Rasheed and not us?” Devon wondered out loud.
Remembering the Frankie Diamonds story, I answered him. “They got chased and split up she could only carry one of you, so I think your daddy grabbed you two.”
The Cliffs Notes, minus the gruesome details. That’s what I gave them and they still looked down at the table like I’d stepped on their favorite pet cricket. Shiree was even harder to read and I could understand why. She literally loved and lost her brother.
I wasn’t even trying to wrap my head around my relationship with Devon or Rayshon or whatever. Ugh, I shuddered whenever I said or thought of that name. I’d decided to call it a night after the pizza came for Trey. I put on my house sweats, did the movie and pizza thing with my little man, and then we were out.
I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating and out of breath. I was having a nightmare that Devon was Rasheed and he was trying to kill me. Out of habit I turned to Devon and realized I’d fallen asleep with Trey. I quietly climbed out of Trey’s little bed and stretched my stiff, sore back.
“I can rub that for you.”
I turned around slowly. “How did you get in here, Towanna?” I asked her quietly.
“You didn’t answer my calls, didn’t return any of my texts. I had to make sure you were good.” She shrugged and picked at her fingernails.
“Towanna, where’s Devon?”
“On the couch, exactly where he was when I came in,” she replied calmly, too calmly.
“Stop playing with me; you know what the hell I’m asking you. Is he alive?”
“For now. I’m not the one who’s going to determine how long he lives. You are. So come along; we don’t need to get cliché about this shit either.”
“What about Trey? What am I—”
“He’ll be safer here. So give him a kiss and let’s go.”
We walked right out the front door. Past Devon who was passed out drunk on the couch and everything. The only good thing was I still slept in full preparation mode sometimes. My phone was in my pants pocket and I looked for any chance to call or text for help.
So much for my macho man super protection; and what’s the point of the damn house alarm if he’s not going to use it? Worse than Key’s ass.
We drove for about an hour until she finally stopped at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The water was pitch black beneath and the night wind whistled in cold sheets against the side of her SUV. I was too scared to ask why we were there or what she was about to do with me. I just stared at the stars; every now and again a stark white seagull would appear and dive below.
“Get out of the car, Michelle. It’s time to get this shit over with.”
She got out, walked around, and opened my door.
“Whatever this is, I don’t want to do it. I’m serious. I really don’t want to. You’re right, I’m wrong.”
“I’m not the one trying to prove anything. It’s your ass. Get the fuck down here and stop acting like a little punk-ass bitch. You done let that nigga twist your mind all the fuck up like that? The dick can’t be that damn good.”
I climbed out the truck, slamming the door and I walked up to her, yelling the entire way. “Are we really standing in the middle of this fucking bridge having a damn argument over . . . over I don’t even know what it’s over? So leave my man and his dick up out ya mouth, Towanna.”
“Okay now we’re getting somewhere. So he’s your man now?”
“Yes, he’s my man, Towanna. You mad or somethin’? Is that why we here?”
She ignored me and kept going with the questions, her nostrils flaring and eyes raging. “Does he love you?”
She would ask me that after the day we just had.
“What happened? We ain’t so quick when it counts anymore. Does he love you as much as I love you?”
I actually laughed and loud, too. “Towanna, you might need to go get checked out your damn self. The hell are you talking about? No one came to the house that night, there were no cars, you were sleep on the couch. It was just you wasn’t it? You tortured me for Rah’s money.”
“Right, you right.” She pulled out her pistol.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
We have what we need. Get down.
That text turned me into a human panic button and I was suddenly the one pressed for information.
“Towanna, did you kill your partner that night?
She curled her lip in a smirk. “Fuck no. The hell would you—”
“Towanna, shut up and just answer the damn questions. Is your mom’s name Lacy?”
“Da fuck? Huh?”
I clenched my fist and literally groaned out loud. “Tell me, hurry up. What is it?”
She started looking at me sideways; she obviously didn’t understand but I didn’t need her to underst
and. We didn’t have time for the theatrics right now. My eyes were all over the place, scared a helicopter was going to rise up beside us at any minute spraying saltwater everywhere. Lightning lit the sky up and I almost came up out my skin.
“My mom’s name is Royce,” Towanna finally called out suspiciously narrowing her eyes.
I ran toward her, waving my arms before throwing myself at her, knocking her to the ground. The sky split open in a crack of lightning and a roar of thunder and down came the rain.
Towanna looked at me like I’d sprouted a nose in the middle of my forehead. “Woman, have you lost your damn mind? What in the world?” she asked me.
“Why does everybody keep asking me that shit?” I smiled down at her.
And then I passed out.
Chapter 29
Orders Are Meant to Be Followed
Iodine, ultraviolet lights, and ointment: I could smell it everywhere and feel it on the backs of my eyelids prying them open. People were walking and talking around me in hushed whispers. The last thing I could remember was looking down at Towanna in the rain and then this. I had no idea where I was, where she was or where . . .
I sat up and pain ran through the entire left side of my body. There was no pinpointing where it began or ended. It felt like the skin was tearing and pulling from the front of my stomach to the back of my ribcage.
“She’s awake,” I heard someone say on the other side of a white curtain.
“How are you feeling, Michelle?” A nurse approached me and checked my vitals.
“I don’t know, tell me what happened and I’ll figure out how I feel as opposed to that.”
“Well, you were brought in with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The police report says you tried to kill yourself. Did you know you were pregnant when you attempted this, Michelle?”
I sat there with my head cocked to the side as if I’d gotten water in my ear and I were waiting on that one drop to drip its way out. I didn’t move, I didn’t blink, and I didn’t make a sound.
Baby Momma 3 Page 21