Click.
Vera held the phone to her breasts and looked into the distance. She shook her head and placed the phone back on her desk.
Doesn’t matter.
Fuck Rowanda.
Vera nestled into the soft leather of her seat seeing visions of her mother—naked. Needle in her arm. Belt wrapped around her bicep. Nodding out. Slipping. Banging her head on the claw-foot tub. Dead. Arms stretched out and blood dripping like she hung on the crucifix.
What if she dies?
She’s already dead to me.
That’s your mother.
Fuck. Her.
No.
Fuck. Her.
You don’t mean that.
Vera sat up and ran her hands over her face. This was not the plight she was supposed to have.
Fuck.
Shit never ends.
The Lincoln projects felt like the longest ride of her life. She hated that cameras refused to leave her side once she told them where she was going, but whatever.
This is reality TV.
Well, welcome to my reality.
Vera parked her BMW X6 in front of a rusted, red, and graffiti-painted sign that read, “Welcome to Lincoln Garden Projects.” She sat for a moment and stared into the memories dancing through the courtyard. There was something eerily tranquil about this place—the place she once called home.
She spotted Rowanda sitting on a park bench in the center of the courtyard, next to an unraveling basketball net and concrete checkerboard table, sipping a beer as she stared into the street.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Vera said with every ounce of venom that she could.
“Why are you here?” Rowanda looked around. “This ain’t no place for you.”
Vera smirked. “What. The. Fuck. Is wrong with you?” Before Rowanda could answer, Vera continued, “I’m sooooo sick of saving you, and looking out for you, and mothering you, and being all this shit to you and you give me nothing but false goddamn hope and grief. I was not pregnant with you. You are not my child. You are my mother, so why the hell am I always saving you?!”
“Go home, Vera,” Rowanda said quietly, as if she were talking more to herself than to Vera. “I am who I am, and I don’t need you saving me. Okay? So go back to Fifth Avenue.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Vera looked her over. “Don’t pull that ‘go back to Fifth Avenue’ bullshit on me, as if that’s all I understand. I know what it is to be in hell and not be able to leave that motherfucker.”
“No, you don’t, Vera.” Rowanda sipped her beer. “You can’t even begin to understand what it is to have demons that ride your back, day in and day out. Night after night.”
“So you go back and get high? That’s the solution? Smoke the motherfuckers away.”
“I never said that.”
“Then what are you saying? Why do you keep doing this to me?!”
“This is not about you!”
“It’s never about me! It’s always about you and your monkey. Fuck me.” Vera stabbed her finger into her chest. “Fuck my child. Fuck our hopes that finally you have got it together. Fuck it all, because suddenly you need to outrun some bullshit and I should just deal with it.”
“Listen to me. Me getting high is about me. Not you. Stop taking responsibility for me and my shit.”
Vera wiped tears and bit down on the inside of her cheek. “If you would stop fucking up, I wouldn’t need to keep taking responsibility for your shit. Got strangers calling me to come and get you. I don’t need that shit.”
“I didn’t tell nobody to call you. Go home.”
“Well, somebody called me and I’m here now, damn it! ”
“Go. Home.”
“You think it’s that easy?”
“It should be!”
“It’s not!” Vera screamed. “Now why did you do this? And why are you looking like you’re about to pass out?” Vera’s eyes combed Rowanda’s flushed skin and the sweat dripping down her face.
“It’s nothing wrong with me!”
“It has to be something wrong with you. Or at least it better be, because after tonight, if this is the goddamn life you want”—Vera pointed around—“then I’m done with you. And I mean that.”
Rowanda hesitated. “Vera, I don’t need you passing judgment. Just listen.”
“Judgment about what?” Vera said, aggravated. “What would make me more judgmental than I’m feeling at this moment?”
Rowanda shook her head. “Listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“I was so deep into my addiction—”
“You could never be deeper than you are at this moment.”
“Would you just listen to me?”
“I’m listening.”
“Not long after you went to live with Cookie, I had a baby.”
“What?”
“I was so out there and getting so high that I didn’t even know I was pregnant.”
“You had a what?”
“I was too busy gettin’ fucked up. Out there prostituting. Doing anything to get high. Trying to run from all sorts and shades of shit. So busy in search of something to take me out of this motherfucker, that I didn’t even know I was carrying a baby.”
“A baby?”
Tears poured from Rowanda’s eyes into the creases of her neck. “And when I gave birth to him.”
“Him?”
“Him.” Rowanda snorted and attempted to crack half a smile. “He was a beautiful baby. He had deep chocolate around his ears and fingertips, and he was so long. . . .” she said to the distance. “And I knew he was going to be dark, strong, and handsome.”
“What happened to the baby?” Vera.
“I wanted him so bad.” Rowanda rocked. “I wanted me and you, and him, to run off and leave this goddamn dump. I wanted to so bad, but I was soooo deep into my addiction, that I couldn’t stop getting fucking high. No matter what. I had to have that shit. Smack. Dope. Suicide. I had to have it. And even though I was in labor with him, I stayed in that abandoned, nasty-ass, get-high palace, sucking dick and snortin’ that shit. And when my water broke and the baby started to bust through my goddamn pussy, er’body in that spot fled and the only one who stood by me was my friend, Queen. She practically carried me to the hospital.”
“Where was the baby’s father?”
Rowanda sipped her beer. “I was a junkie, Vera. He had a million fuckin’ fathers.”
Silence.
She continued, “After I had him, the hospital wouldn’t let me take him. They said I wasn’t fit. And I wasn’t, but I still wanted him. So I would go to the hospital every day to feed him. They would let me hold him and kiss him. But he couldn’t go home with me. And Cookie had you, so there was no way I could call her and tell her that the junkie done had another baby.”
“So what did you do?”
“I fed him every day, until the day I went back to the hospital and the nurses said that Social Services had placed him.”
“Oh, my God.”
“And do you know what?”
“What?”
“I kept up with him for a while. I found out where he was and I would go to the school yard and watch him play. Sneak and take pictures of him.”
“Did he ever see you?”
“No. I did that for years and then I went on a drug run one week and when I went back to that school, I didn’t see him anymore.”
“So you don’t know what happened to him?”
“I know that he grew up, got married, had two children, and became a football legend.” She pulled a picture from her pocket. “Look at him. I took this picture when he was five.”
Vera looked at the picture. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“I found him, Vera,” Rowanda said as silent tears ran from her eyes and over her lips.
“Who is he?”
“Ken . . . du.”
“Kendu?” Vera looked into the distance and the vision of the way Rowanda stare
d at Kendu when he entered the party played before her. She continued to look into space and thought about how tears danced in Rowanda’s eyes when Kendu told his story.
“Oh my God, Rowanda!” Vera turned back toward her mother and screamed as she saw Rowanda convulsing with foam oozing from the sides of her lips.
CHAPTER 40
JOURNEE
“Are you sure he’s dead this time? I’m telling you I’m not getting my hopes up,” Journee mumbled to Xavier as they paced the hospital waiting area. “Every other year he pulls this ‘I’m dead’ shit and I fall for it.”
“I think he’s done,” Xavier said. “The nurse said she couldn’t wake him this morning and he didn’t have a pulse.”
“I don’t trust it. He has nine goddamn lives.”
Journee’s heels clicked against the tile. “What’s taking the doctor so long to come out here?!”
“I don’t know.”
“I know he isn’t dead. I just know it. Trust me, they’ll come rolling his decrepit ass out of here at any moment.”
“Mrs. Dupree.” The doctor stepped into the room. It was hard to read his face, but Journee tried. “He’s alive!” she attempted to say with glee.
“I’m sorry. We tried all that we could.”
“He’s gone . . .” Journee moaned.
“I’m sorry.” The nurse offered her sympathy.
Thank you, Jesus! “Oh no, not my Zachary!” She turned to Xavier and he held her.
“Mr. Dupree was a great man,” the doctor said. “And he held on as long as he could.”
Too goddamn long. “He was a wonderful man, Doctor. I loved him so much!”
“I know.” Xavier’s voice trembled. “I loved him too!.”
CHAPTER 41
MILAN
Brnggg.
Milan looked at the number on her cell phone and a smile ran across her face. She closed her bedroom door before answering. “Hello?”
“Milan?”
“Yes.”
“This is Charlie, the PI. And I have that information you need.”
“So this motherfucker’s fuckin’ some Garden State wanna be Hollywood skeezer,” Milan said to no one in particular as she drove over the George Washington Bridge headed for Jersey. “Tinsel Town ho and shit. I guess reality TV wasn’t enough for this son of a bitch! He had to go and get some video, movie, red-carpet, walk-of-the-stars ho! Honey, I’m going to slice her fuckin’ throat.”
No you’re not.
“Right. I will try and talk to this slore, woman to whore. Try and be really calm. Cool. And I’m going to ask her when she discovered Kendu was married—before or after she became the stalking-ass sidepiece. Because maybe, maybe she didn’t know.” Milan paid the toll. “You know how niggahs do. Lie and shit. Deny their whole damn family for some pussy. And maybe, maybe this blonde bimbo has been under a rock. You know how white girls get. Dizzy-ass shit. Don’t know a damn thing. Think all black folks look alike. So maybe she didn’t know that Kendu was married. But”—she exited the highway—“if she gets flip at the lip and admits that she knew he was married, babeeeeeee, I’ma grip her by her blonde-ass scalp and teach her ass about trying to up her pussy mileage off my husband! And you can put five on that!”
Milan parked her car on the tree-lined street. “Oh, this here home wrecker is straight up cookie-cutter middle America. White picket fences, dog over there in the yard. And if I’m not mistaken”—Milan walked up the front path and peeked around the side of the large colonial—“that’s that damn baby she’s been taunting me with. Is Kendu paying for this cunt to be tucked away in the burbs? He has to be, ’cause Charlie said she was a Z-list actress. Lowballin’. And everybody knows those hos are broke.”
Milan pushed the bell and then she could hear the sound traveling through the house.
“I’m coming!” a happy valley-girl voice said from inside before she opened the door and cocked her neck to the side.
“Yeah, bitch,” Milan said, sticking her foot in between the door and the doorpost. “It’s me.”
“What are you doing here?!”
“Oh, you know what the fuck I’m doing here! Don’t be scared. Were you scared when you were stalking me all over New York? Were you scared when you were fuckin’ my husband? Hell no. You weren’t scared. But you’re scared because I’m at your door!”
“What do you want?”
“Well, Susan,” Milan said in perfect sarcastic diction, “shall we start with did you know that Kendu was married?”
Susan frowned and snickered. “Are you serious right now? What are you? Stupid? Of course I knew he was married. He’s a football legend. An ESPN commentator on the number-one sports show in the country. He’s been on reality TV for three seasons. Not to mention he is fine as hell. And you’re asking me if I knew he was married? How silly. The real question is did it matter? And that answer would be no. Now what you’d better do is get out of here, go back home, and watch me work as I continue to take your man!”
POW! BAM! WHAP! BOOM! AHHHHHH!!!!
Milan dragged Susan out of her doorway and slapped her so hard that the strike against her skin made the sound of wet leather. Susan was able to grip Milan by the hair, but that didn’t stop Milan from punching her in the face. “I will kill you!” Milan roared as she and Susan scrambled across the grass.
“Get off me!” Susan yelled.
Milan right hooked her and Susan swung, but missed. “It’s gon’ be more than me on you. It’s gon’ be six feet worth of dirt on your ass!”
“Stop it! What are you two doing?!” Two men pulled the clawing women apart.
“Let me go!” Susan yelled.
“Yeah,” Milan said, waving her hand for Susan to come near. “Let her ass go so I can stomp that hooker’s face in. You stalk me and fuck my husband! Make a fool out of me and think you won’t get your ass beat! Bitch, please!”
“I’m not sleeping with your husband, you dumb broad! Stupid ass!”
“Lying ass.”
“Bipolar slut! I was hired! You lunatic! Bridget hired me!”
“Liar!”
“She did! She told me your ass was boring and she wanted me to help you spice things up. But I didn’t sign up for this! Tell Bridget that I quit! I’m done! You’ve come to my house where I live! My children are in the backyard and you’ve attacked me! Oh, you will see me in court!”
“You pretended to be my husband’s mistress?!” Milan clawed at the air because she couldn’t get around the man holding her back. “You ruined my marriage and act like you’re the victim! You’d better watch your back, because the first opportunity I get I’ma snatch your scalp off and beat your goddamn face in!” Milan stormed toward her car, got in, and took off.
CHAPTER 42
VERA
Dear God, why?
What the hell am I going to say to this man?
Just tell him.
Tell him what? “I’m your sister. You need to come and meet your mother because she snorted the wrong bag of dope and will probably die”?
I need to go home.
Vera slid her keys back into her Range Rover’s ignition.
I can’t do this.
What if she dies!
Then die, damn it! I’m soooo tired of always being worried about her. On edge. Not sure if today’s the day she’s going to go back to using. Can I trust her now? Can I . . . ? I’m tired of being the junkie’s kid who just wants a mother . . . a mother! She’s been clean for years and in one night, she throws away her whole life. One night!
She pounded her fist on the steering wheel.
Fuck!
Tears filled her eyes.
A brother. She has a son. Who the hell leaves her baby in the hospital to go and get high? My mother, that’s who. God, what the hell do you want me to do?! Why’d she have to dump this shit on me?!
“I’m not doing this,” Vera said to no one in particular as she picked up her cell phone and dialed a number. “Aunt Cookie, I can’t do i
t. I can’t. I’m tired. I’m confused. And I can’t go in here and tell this man that I’m his damn sister and Rowanda is his mother. He’s going to think I’m crazy! Hell, I think I’m crazy!”
“You know what, baby girl? I love you like I gave birth to you, but sometimes I wonder if I kicked your li’l ass enough as a child! And it’s your Uncle Boy’s fault ’cause he helped me to raise a selfish, spoiled, and self-centered damn brat. What the hell is wrong with you?! Your mother is on her dying bed and you are contemplating not telling this man, who knows he was a foster child, who knows he was adopted, who he really is. I could halfway understand it if it was a secret, but it’s not. Now your mother asked you to tell him and you need to do that!”
“She should’ve never left him!”
“Well, she did! She was a junkie. Hell, she is a junkie, and you are expecting her to act and think sober. She couldn’t do that at the time. You have to stop trying to make your mother someone else and accept her for who she is. No one wants a mother who gets high, but this is your damn life. Now work with it!”
“Suppose he doesn’t go to the hospital?”
“That’s not your problem. Now go in there and tell him!”
“Aunt Cookie—”
“Vera Bennett! Get off this phone and go talk to your brother now!”
Click.
Vera looked up at Milan and Kendu’s house and shook her head.
Fuck it. She grabbed her purse and rushed out of her X-6 before she changed her mind.
Here goes. She sighed as she rang the doorbell. She could see the hanging mic and the cameraman’s shadow as someone approached the door. Damn it. The camera.
Kendu opened the door. “Vera, hey. How are you doing?” Vera could tell by the creases in his face that he was upset. She stared into his eyes and for the first time, she realized they had the same almond-shaped eyes, full bottom lip, and mole in the center of their left cheek.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
“Huh, what?” she said, startled. “What did you ask me?”
“I asked if you were okay. You’re just standing there staring at me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Umm . . . Is your wife here?”
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