“Good night, Claudio. Thanks for the burger.”
He asked, “Is it okay to call you at work tomorrow?”
“For what?”
“You said things were tight, right?”
“My cash is shorter than Webster.”
“Let me see what I can do.”
“Well, if you have a limo at your door, you can do something.”
“Anything for you.”
I smiled. Felt a rush from the energy and dominance. I took a slow, smooth breath. Relished the feeling. Let it creep into my body, felt its majesty as it filled these lungs.
Then from behind me, in the darkness, I heard my name: “Dana.”
Every ounce of air was sucked out of my body.
It was Vince.
21
Dana
Vince was a few feet away, under a streetlight. His body was tight, standing close to where my car was parked. He had appeared out of thin air like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
“Shit,” was the one word that slipped from my mouth.
I blinked, tried to make that shadow vanish, but he was there.
Claudio said, “Look like homeboy followed you.”
I wanted to know how Vince knew where I was, wondered if he had trailed me down on Melrose, or even by Gerri’s midnight paper route, wondered what he had heard, wondered all of that in the blink of an eye.
Claudio put his hand on my shoulder, said, “Want me to—”
I moved his hand away and said a curt “Stop, Claudio.”
Just like that, I was coming apart at the seams. I’m used to busting them, used to being the bust-er, not the bust-ee. No idea what to do.
A stare-down was going on between the men.
Claudio tried to step by me, but I jumped in front of him, politely pushed him back. Vince was watching.
I reminded myself to breathe.
I told Claudio, “Let me go take care of this.”
“Unh-huh, no can do. I’ll go with—”
“No, Claudio. I can handle this.”
Vince lowered his head, turned around, and took unhurried steps to his car. He drove away. Didn’t screech, didn’t peep back, never called my name again, just drove away.
Again, the word of the night was, “Shit.”
“C’mon inside. Dee Dee, c’mon inside. Let that punk ass nig go.”
I pretty much jogged to my car, did the same thing that Vince had done. I drove away, sped up until I saw Vince’s taillights. My heart pounding, hands sweating. I slowed down when I made it to Centenilia, let him go on, let myself get caught at a light or two. He vanished around the curve. And I sat there, aching, thinking.
“Shit.”
Hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Ain’t no telling what he might do when I got back to the apartment.
I clicked my heels three times. Nothing happened.
The moment I opened the door, I saw Vince was lying on the living room floor, on the carpet, face up, like he had collapsed when he came in the room. The phone was cradled in his arms. Vince moved enough for the hall light that was behind me to lighten up his frown.
I swallowed. “Were you stalking me?”
No answer. His eyes held so much hatred. His breathing filled the entire apartment.
I said, “You walked out on me. I needed you to stay and talk to me tonight. But you walked out. I’d been humiliated. The damn police saw me without my clothes on. Juanita and Naiomi saw, so you know they blabbered it to everybody in the building. I lied to LAPD to keep you out of trouble. And after all of that, you walked out on me like I wasn’t shit.”
“And you ran to somebody else.”
Nothing came from my mouth.
“That was the brother we saw at the Shark Bar.”
“Yeah.”
“Who is he?”
“My ex.”
“How long has he been out here?”
“Not long.”
“How long have you been in contact with him?”
“Not long. This was the first time I saw him. I needed to talk, that’s all. You wouldn’t talk to me, I had to talk to somebody.”
Palms wouldn’t stop sweating, fingers tingling like I was on the road to a stroke. Heart attack. My heart, so weak just like my mother’s.
He asked, “So, you fucking him?”
“Nope. We haven’t made any tapes.”
“Blow job?”
“I don’t believe you said that.”
“The night you were out until three, is that who you were with?”
“I was with Gerri.”
“What about the tickets to the comedy thing?”
“What, you’ve been going through my purse too?”
“No more than you’ve been going through my closet.”
We let it rest for a moment.
Finally he said, “All the way back here, my insides were mixed up with thoughts of forgiveness and revenge. That sound familiar?”
I shifted, said, “Yes. I said that to you.”
“Must be nice, riding around on a moonlit night in a limo.”
“It wasn’t planned, if that’s what you think.”
“I saw you kissing him. Over and over, you kissed him.”
I swallowed. “Like I said, we didn’t make any tapes.”
Vince laughed. Nothing was funny, I was terrified, trying to act cool and confident, wanted him to be to blame, and he laughed.
“I was wishing I had a .22 on my hip. That was scary, wishing that. I’ve been there before. I know how this story ends.”
Remorse was so heavy I could hardly stand.
His voice was ragged. “It’s time for you to move.”
My throat tightened.
Vince continued, “The woman I marry has to be in my corner, support me, and accept my daughter. I’m gonna do everything in my power to make sure Kwanzaa knows who her real father is. Those are my parents’ only grandchild, the last branch on this tree. If I have to keep living right here on Stocker and Degnan and work two jobs and sacrifice so she can expand her mind and have a life better than this shit I’ve got, that’s what I’ll do.”
By then my breathing was choppy; I was suffocating.
Vince’s voice lowered. “That’s my child. You’re just a woman I met in a bar. If I had done what I was thinking about doing, it would have been hell for you, jail for me. You owe my child. She saved you tonight.”
My chest heaved with regret.
“You burned up my child’s pictures. What kinda woman are you?”
He stomped toward the bedroom. My legs were so weak. On the other side of the wall that stood between us, the springs creaked when he finally lay down.
I wiped my eyes; my hands came back dry. I gazed at the old cracks and new cobwebs in the spackled ceiling until everything became blurry, until my eyes watered more than I could stand, until focus was lost.
Then my pager went off. Startled me. I knew who it was.
I muttered, “Fuck.”
Vince released a tormented
“Now.”
I responded, “What?”
“Move now. Start packing. Don’t be here when the sun comes up.”
A chuckle of disbelief came from me. “You serious?”
“Do I sound serious?”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“Pack or I’ll start throwing your shit out a window.”
“I can’t take all of my—”
“Take what you can take in one trip. Start packing.”
This was some shit. I shook my head and made my way into the kitchen. Clicked the light on. Looked on the counter. They were still there. Vince hadn’t been in the kitchen since he came back. Never looked down when the police came knocking.
I picked the photos up, went in the bedroom, and dumped them in his lap. It was hard to talk; one by one, my words crawled out, “These are yours.”
He saw that I’d given him the pictures of Kwanzaa. All four were intact. Not a single dent, not a scratch.
His eyes came to mine for what might’ve been the last time.
“Vince, I burned up pictures of you and me. Pictures I paid for with my own money, that was what I burned. I was upset with you. With me. Mad at us. All I was going to do was change the pictures back in the frames, but I got frustrated. What’s funny was you were so stuck on those pictures that you never noticed that the ones we took were gone too.”
He stared at the photos in disbelief.
“They were on the counter. Have been there all evening. You ran right by them, came in screaming and accusing, assumed I’d burned them up. I burned up the picture of you, the one I paid for.”
His heart-shaped lips parted enough for me to see the tip of his pearly whites, but whatever he wanted to say was trapped in his throat.
My words marched on: “Yes, I have feelings, and if need be, I can be vindictive,” I admitted and used the back of my hand to wipe away tears. “I’m not evil like you think I am. I’d never hurt somebody I care about. I’d never burn up a baby’s picture.”
I wiped my eyes, grabbed a suitcase, started packing.
22
Dana
I woke up underneath a comforter, my head on a pillow as soft as a cloud. As homeless as I wannabe.
Turkey bacon, oatmeal, and toast were in the air. My eyes focused on a huge framed picture of Little Rock Central High School over my head. Took me a second to remember who I was, where I was, that I was in Gerri’s bedroom. My overnight luggage and three boxes with a handful of my junk were in the corner, next to her six-drawer dresser.
Somebody tapped on the door. “You awake?”
“I’m always up after three hours of sleep. Come on in.”
Gerri came in wearing a red hooded housecoat, slippers, hair in a ponytail, smelling shower fresh. She said, “Good morning.”
I took the yellow satin scarf off my head. “Good morning.”
“You were tossing and turning.”
“Don’t you sleep?”
“A mother never sleeps.”
I yawned. “A tsunami is doing a number on my insides.”
“Right now, I know how you feel.”
Again I yawned. “Misery loves company.”
“Then I’m your Woman Friday.”
I straighted out my cotton NY Giants pj’s, something I hadn’t worn in a while. I’d grown used to sleeping skin to skin with Vince most nights, with the window up for the fresh, cool night breeze. I ran my tongue over my teeth, licked the sour taste.
A beep-beep-beep came from the microwave. Then the voices of her two rug rats arguing. Everybody in this world was wide awake and talking.
Gerri’s daughter squealed, “That was my toast. Put it down.”
“Move, fathead.” That was her son. “Make yourself another piece.”
“Momma, he’s eating my toast.”
Gerri spoke firmly and softly, “Don’t start acting like idiots with me this morning. Give your sister her toast.”
“Momma, yesterday she ate my—”
“Give her the doggone toast.”
Her son stuck his head in the door. “She ate my toast yesterday.”
Gerri snapped, “It’s a new day. For the last time, give up the toast.”
“Why y’all females always siding up with each other?”
Gerri answered, “Duh, hello, O ye creature of useless testosterone in a queendom of estrogen and eggs.”
“What?”
“Because we’re females, dodo brain,” her daughter said as she pushed Trench aside, stuck her head in the door too. “You’re a boy. We rule.”
He made a face. “You wish.”
“Who got the toast? Useless creature of test-off-you’re-wrong.”
Everybody laughed.
Trench smiled and straightened his teenage posture. Gerri’s daughter, Stacy, was five six with a small waist, caramel skin, shoulder-length auburn hair, round Bambi-like eyes. Dressed in a plaid skirt and white blouse, her school uniform. Her son had the same dimples and happy-go-lucky smile, only he was six feet plus and growing, shaved bald to the bone, with big silver hooped earrings in each earlobe.
“Yo, Dana.” Trench slid his leather backpack off his arm, straightened out his Shawn Kemp jersey. When he smiled, he showed a mouth filled with braces and rubber bands. “What you been up to?”
“What’s up, player? How’re the grades looking?”
“Dag, why you always on my back?” He frowned, then laughed. “I got a C in English, a B in social studies, the rest are strong A’s.”
Stacy boasted, “I made straight A’s.”
Trench playfully pushed her. “Nobody talking to you.”
Stacy asked me, “Did you and your boyfriend have a fight?”
“What I tell you about that? Stay out of grown folks’ business,” Gerri said, then told her son, “Make sure you talk to your English teacher you claim gave you a C and ask what you can do to bring that grade up to a B. Talk to your teacher today, as soon as you can. Show him you’re serious. Page me and let me know what he says.”
He grumbled. “All he gonna do is make me do extra work.”
Gerri shot him a momma look and said, “What was that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s more like it. Don’t show off because Dana is here.”
Stacy jumped in, “PTA meeting next week. You’re on the committee.”
Gerri sighed out, “Okay. Did you ask your daddy?”
“He’s on the committee too. I want you to sit together so people won’t be asking me all kind of stupid questions.”
“Be asking?”
“Ask.”
“Okay. As long as his breath don’t stink.”
Trench said, “Momma, I need some new tennis shoes.”
Gerri rolled her eyes. “If I have some extra cash, we’ll go up Manchester to the Footlocker outlet this weekend.”
“The outlet? Aw, c’mon,” he griped. “I can’t be walking around in no whacked last-millennium shoes from the outlet.”
“Then get a job.”
“Mom, c’mon. People will diss me like I’m crazy. Shoes up there are played out like the eight-track.”
Gerri sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. You’re gonna have to get a job, and I’m talking soon, so you can get your hands out of my pocket.”
She sounded so much like a mother. Gerri wore so many hats in her twenty-four-hour day. And her voice owned a different tone every time. Had to become so many different types of women.