Victoria
Frustrated, I ran to the front door, unlocked it, and ran back to the bathroom.
Taij was there to drop off DeSire. I was in the bathroom having a hell of a time getting tracks out that apparently my beautician sewed in with cement thread!
I could hear Taij entering the house, so I said hello and kept attempting to cut thread without cutting my hair.
I had a lot on my mind after leaving Dr. Peterson’s office. I was annoyed with myself because I was realizing how ridiculous it was that I had pushed men like Vince and Greg away. Dr. Peterson was right; I assumed that every man would hurt me, when I hadn’t given myself enough opportunities at commitment to make those assumptions. I had been being so silly these past few years. If I didn’t stop, I was going to be living a very lonely life.
I was in a zone; thinking and taking my frustrations out on my head. I needed to do something to take my mind off of things, so I was going to wash my natural hair, blow dry it, and set it. My mind was racing as I could hear Taij in DeSire’s room. I wondered should I let my guard down and call Greg. I wondered even if I wanted Greg in that way. I wondered, if I didn’t, was it for the right reasons.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Taij startled me so much that I dropped the scissors into the sink. He was in the doorway looking at me like I was crazy, as I continued making a really bad attempt at taking my hair down.
“Trying to get these tracks out. Is DeSire sleep?”
“She’s going to sleep.”
“Good,” I muttered. Then I laughed as Taij continued to give me this puzzled look. “What?”
“Do you need help with that?”
I laughed as I replied, “No.”
“It look like it.”
Then, he just took the scissors from me and pushed me gently out of the bathroom and into the living room. He sat on the couch and motioned for me to sit between his legs.
As I sat, I asked, “Have you done this before? I don’t want you to cut my hair out.”
“No, but I bet I can do a better job than you was.”
I could feel his fingers exploring my scalp, so I gave him instructions. “Just look for thread and cut it.”
“Why do women wear this shit anyway?”
“To impress y’all,” I answered as I heard him cutting away.
With a chuckle, he replied, “We don’t pay attention to shit like this.”
“A lie. I bet if it was a bad weave, you would notice.”
“True,” he answered as he chuckled again. “Is this what you’ve been doing all day?”
“Besides work and therapy, yep.”
Taij suddenly stopped cutting as he asked, “Therapy?”
“Yea.”
“Why are you going to therapy?”
Jokingly, I asked, “Don’t you think I should be?”
“How long have you been going?”
“A little over a year.”
“Wow.” Then he sighed in a way that made it seem like he was taken aback.
“What?”
“I’m proud of you,” Taij told me as he began to attack my tracks again.
“For what?”
“For taking the steps to get over what you’ve been through. I told you before, I see such a positive change in you. It’s like, you’re growing and that hard exterior you had before is gone. You still got a lil’ bitch in you…”
“Whatever!” Then I smacked his leg.
“You do! I know you though, so I can’t blame you for being a little bitchy. But you are so much more approachable than you were a few years ago. Your smile is genuine. It’s like, you’re happy… with yourself.”
I smiled as I held my head down to allow Taij to get to the tracks in the back. I was happy that I was finally becoming this person that people could see was happy, not miserable.
I thought of what Dr. Peterson said, about having “the conversation” with Taij that would continue this ball rolling to me becoming a happier me that was content with herself. This was the perfect time.
Yet, I dared not taint this triumphant moment with the horrible memories of our past. I figured that, now that I was letting this wall down around my heart, all things were going to happen in due time, so the closure that I needed would come in due time as well.
Seventeen
Monday, October 1, 2012
Tricey
It had been nearly two weeks since the news broke of Derrick, Iyana, and Devin’s murders. Finally, the news coverage ceased since the police had no leads on the killers.
Assuring me over and over again that he had things handled and that he would never be linked to these murders, Blood thought it safe for him and Lucky to leave town last night. I assumed that they were making a run, but I didn’t even ask. I was glad to see him go because I needed the peace and quiet around my home.
Nearly five weeks pregnant, it was becoming very difficult to deal with the morning sickness and nausea every time I ate anything, along with running around after Ariana and Mauri. So I gladly took them both to daycare that morning and had been sulking in the darkness of my bedroom ever since returning home.
I was stressed to the max. I was too pregnant to my liking; so pregnant that even Damion questioned when my menstrual cycle would come on since we had now been sleeping together for weeks and I hadn’t had a period. The nausea caused by certain foods was becoming difficult to hide from him while I was trying desperately to think of a reasonable way to terminate this pregnancy without seeming like a total conniving bitch to Blood.
No matter what- no matter what Blood had done and no matter how much Damion was sweeping me off of my feet – I wasn’t ready to leave my stability. Therefore, I couldn’t piss it off my terminating the pregnancy that he was so gawd damn happy about.
It was stressing me out so much that I was giving myself a migraine and high blood pressure. As I lay across my bed and my alarm went off, even that noise made my head pound.
I fought to turn the volume down in the darkness, and then like a fairy granting my wish, I read the notification flashing across the screen. I had forgotten all about my appointment with the clinic that Dr. Smith made after my last appointment. The appointment was that afternoon at three o’clock.
It was perfect timing.
STAR
My mother was giving me that look that I always liked to avoid because I knew that a stern lecture was coming after it.
I knew that I could leave in and out of her house only for so long before she started giving me flack about it.
I stood in the living room as she stared at me from the couch. Jordan was in his room taking a nap.
“What’s wrong, mama?” I hated to ask, but I couldn’t just ignore this suspicious look that she was giving me.
“I know what you’re out there doing.” She sounded so disgusted as she spoke. “You still out all night, at all times of night. You think I don’t know what you doin’?!”
Her screeches entered my brain like fingernails scraping a chalkboard. I stared at the door, only a few feet away. The other side of it felt so unreachable.
“Mama, I’m not in prison anymore. I can’t have a life?”
“You are on parole, Star. You cannot do anything that will get you locked up again.”
“I’m not.” I really wasn’t. At this point, I had only been spending time outside of work and home with DeShawn; no more parties and no more private shows. “I am just managing to have a little fun, attempting to have whatever piece of a normal life that I can.”
Then I broke the news to her, what had been on my mind for the past few days. “When I am off of parole, I’m moving out.”
She looked at me like I was crazy, but I talked around her doubt. “And I want custody of Jordan…”
“Absolutely not.”
“Mama, I make enough money to take care of me and Jordan.”
She spit, “A few hundred dollars a month at the grocery store.”
I shrugged
off the insult and fought the urge to burst her bubble.
Disgustingly, my mother smacked her lips and shook her head. “You know what, Star? Do what you want to do. Hang out, move out; I don’t care. I can no longer stress over your well being. I will not give myself a heart attack worrying about you. But you will not get custody of Jordan.”
I walked out of the house with no further argument. I was so tired of still feeling imprisoned that moving out was all that I could think of for the past few days. I was tired of figuring out ways to get out of that house without her thinking that I was leaving to do something illegal. Yes, I had been stripping and escorting, but that was not what got me convicted for murder.
What got me locked up was making stupid decisions regarding the company that I kept. The irony in that sent chills through me as I left my car in the parking lot of the Jewel and climbed into DeShawn’s LS 460.
“What’s wrong with you?”
DeShawn was so adorable in his fitted cap, True Religion jeans and matching jacket that he wore to keep warm in the night’s fifty degree wind. It made me sick that I could not just relax and enjoy his company because what his company really meant was still so sketchy.
In the last week, ever since he told me not to do anymore parties, he’d left me with a few hundred dollars every other time he saw me. Unlike before, when he was paying me for my time, it felt like he was taking care of me to keep me from making money in my own way. It was such a shame that this layer of doubt was so thick over us that I couldn’t even enjoy it. Yes, he was keeping me out of parties, but he still looked at me with a smidge of doubt and I still looked at him in the same way. He still hid me from his friends, and I still had to hide being with him from my family.
Everyone would think both of us were idiots for still fucking with each other and both parties would swear that one of us was setting up the other.
“I need to move out. My mother is bugging.”
Cautiously, he asked me, “Can you move out?”
Again, that thick layer of tension appeared over us, especially when my imprisonment or parole is vaguely brought up, because the reason why I was in those situations had yet to be addressed between us.
“In two months, I can.”
“Then just be patient.”
“I can’t! She is driving me crazy.”
With a warm hand on my exposed thigh, he smiled so flirtatious and beautifully that his eyes seemed to twinkle under the brim of his fitted cap. “Be patient.”
I didn’t know what that meant and I didn’t ask. Like I said, it was hard even being with him because it was so weird. I needed to know why he was comfortable being around me and what his angle was. Had he forgiven me? Did he believe that I didn’t want Benz and Scoop to rob him?
It was totally plausible that he was setting me up. Just because he was fucking me, spending time with me, and giving me money didn’t mean that he didn’t have a trick up his sleeve. Hell, back then, I had done the same with the sole purpose of setting him up.
I was in deep thought as his car came to a stop on a block in Beverly. The houses on this block were absolutely beautiful and much bigger than any houses on my mother’s block.
I actually saw a few white people walking their dogs and jogging.
Routinely, as he got out of the car, I stayed put.
I could hear him laughing at me from the other side of the closed driver’s side door. “C’mon.”
Stunned and confused, I continued to sit, in my seat belt and all.
“Girl, would you c’mon?”
I looked at him like he was crazy. “You want me to come in with you?”
By this time, he had reached my side of the car and was opening my door. Looking sincerely in my eyes, he told me, “Yes, Star, I want you to come in.”
As he took my hand and guided me out of the car, I thought surely this was it. He would never take me into someone’s house that he knew, so I just knew that he was about to kill me. He was about to make me pay for his friend’s death. It was amazing how, even though I thought this, I followed him up the walkway anyway. I allowed him to take me by the hand through that front door. Stupidly, I was ready to accept whatever was about to happen to me because I knew I deserved it; whether good or bad.
Yet, once inside, he took off his jacket and his gym shoes. He offered me a seat in the living room. He insisted that I rest and take off my shoes as well while finding my caution funny.
With a smile full of amusement, he asked, “You want something to eat?”
That is when I realized that this was his home.
LYRIC
I was sitting on the couch staring out of the window.
It was three o’clock in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep.
An hour ago, my aunt called me to tell me that my father’s health had begun to deteriorate so rapidly that he had been moved to ICU. She said that it was best that I come see him first thing in the morning.
I wanted to cry for my father. I wanted to be sad for my father. Yet, what moved me to tears was that there was no love in my heart that would lead me to do so; even though this man was dying.
Despite his oncoming death, I still hated him for being the absent father figure that he was and for never thinking enough of me to protect me. I thought of my father lying in that bed a few weeks ago knowing that he most likely wouldn’t live that many more years. I hated him for being so distant that he didn’t even take the time out to tell me how much he loved me.
“Babe, what’s wrong?”
The sudden bass of Marcel’s voice initially scared me, but to have him with me quickly comforted me. In a flash, he was sitting next to me with his arms around me, and, when I wouldn’t even cry for my father, I cried in appreciation for Marcel. I felt more love on that couch than I had ever felt with any man, including my father.
“My father is dying. I think he only has a few days to live.”
I sobbed into his chest as he rubbed my back lovingly.
“I am such a bad person because I don’t care.” That confession came out in sobs. I felt like such a heartless animal. No matter how much I knew that my father didn’t show me love, I felt like the world’s worst daughter for not loving him anyway.
“Why do I feel bad for not caring? He was never there for me. He didn’t take care of me! I went through so much by myself because he, nor my mother, was ever sober enough to pay attention!”
Marcel allowed me to bare my soul to him. As I vented with no regard, I felt so comfortable in his embrace. I cursed my mother and my father, and Marcel never judged me. He just held me as he wiped my tears away. He was my ultimate confidant, my closest friend. When there were certain things about me that I was too shame to share with Tricey, this man knew. He knew my every insecurity, fear, and anxiety. Rather than toying with them, he rubbed them away with love.
I melted into him for that, for being everything to me that my blood never thought enough of me to be.
Eighteen
Friday, October 5, 2012
LYRIC
Three days later, my father died.
Luckily, with much encouragement from Marcel, I had been at my father’s bedside as he passed. It was during those three days that I was so appreciative that Marcel had put pressure on me to visit with my father.
It would have haunted me for the rest of my life if I had never visited my father when he was coherent enough to remember me.
And just as he had always been, Marcel was there with me every day and night as I sat in that hospital. He was there to support me as I fought with my soul to sit there and watch my father, yet a man that I knew nothing about, die in front of me. It killed me to hold his hand. But Marcel was my anchor, right there behind me, holding my other hand to give me strength.
He protected me when my mother finally showed up, talking to her so that I wouldn’t have to, keeping her from being able to say anything to piss me off or hurt me.
“Hello?” I reluctantly answered Tricey’s ca
ll as I entered the house. I knew that she would rip me a new one for waiting until now to tell her about my father.
“Girl! Where in the hell have you been? I have been calling you for days!”
I had seen Tricey’s calls. Not only was reception horrible in the hospital, but I had been so busy with dealing with my parents and my dad’s death that I really had no time to call her back to tell her what was going on.
I sighed heavily as I sat on the couch. It was the first time I had been able to relax in days.
Reluctantly, I gave her the news. “My father died.”
“WHAT?! When?!”
“Yesterday.”
“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?! Do you want me to come over?”
“You don’t have to come over. I need some rest, but I’m okay.”
And I was. Fortunately, I was at peace. I was at peace knowing that no matter how he treated me, when it came down to it, I was there for my father and he died knowing that.
Tricey
“Hey, Vic.”
As soon as I got off the phone with Lyric, I called Vic. Though she and Lyric were at odds, I knew that, since we grew up basically with him in the background, she would want know that Lyric’s father had passed.
No matter his addictions, Tim was always present on the block where Vic and Lyric grew up. He was the resident handy man and mechanic, fixing anything and everything for a few dollars.
“Hey, honey. Are you feeling better?”
Monday night, I miscarried. Just as the doctor explained, I took the pill that afternoon and by sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I miscarried. Vic was there with me for support. I felt like shit as I lied to Blood and told him that I thought that I was miscarrying once the bleeding and cramping began. Yet, Vic was such a friend as she lay next to me assuring me that, no matter what, if that was my choice, then it was the right thing to do.
I could tell in Blood’s voice that he didn’t believe a word that I was saying though.
“I’m feeling much better. Just some minor cramping.”
Good Girls Ain't No Fun Boxed Set (The SIX romance and urban fiction volumes of the LOVE, SEX, LIES series) Page 99