Pink Lips (17 page)

Rock looked at her and then at Willow. In their faces, he saw Melee; all three of them looked identical to him and could pass for triplets. He looked into the girl's eyes that were clearly marked with Anoki's beauty. They were the same eyes he'd fallen in love with so many years ago.

“Sister, or no sisters, you better tell her to put that gun down unless she wants two to the dome,” Junior said sternly.

“We didn't come here for any problems,” Rock said as he held his hands up. “I just wanted to see my daughter all grown up.”

“Father?” Kail looked at Willow with doubt. “Moms said our father died right after I was born.”

“So Anoki didn't tell you about me?” Rock looked at Willow. “I don't blame her.”

“How the fuck you know my mother's name?” Kail cocked the gun.

“She was my wife,” he looked at Kail, “and we had two beautiful kids together. Junior,” he said as he nodded his head next to him, “and Willow.”

“Prove it.” Willow's eyes were locked on him.

“You have a small birthmark on your right lower hip; it's the shape of a triangle. I used to see it all the time when I changed your diapers.”

“Don't fall for this shit.” Kail looked at Willow. “We all we got; we don't have a father.”

“No, I'm all I got,” Willow said, raising her voice.

Willow knew as those words escaped Rock's lips that he was telling the truth. She didn't know him, and she didn't trust him, but he seemed like a man who spoke the truth at all costs.

“I didn't want to disturb you. I wanted to meet you officially and tell you if you need something, let me know. I run this city and whatever you need is at your disposal.”

“Wait,” Willow said as Rock turned back around, “if you're my father, then how come you don't know about Kail?”

“Who?” he asked.

“My sister.” Willow pointed toward Kail. “We're exactly eleven months apart.”

“Your mother left me when you were two months old,” Rock said as Junior opened the door. “I didn't know.”

They left the room as the wall shook from the door's closure. Willow and Kail sat there deep in thought as they processed what had just happened. Both were speechless; figuring silence would be the only proper gesture.

As the sun left the sky and night came, Willow was alone in the room. Kail said she had some Pink Lip Bandits stuff to attend to and being alone in her solitude never bothered Willow; not even with stitches being embedded in her neck.

She wanted to go see Duke in ICU, but she was told by the staff that she couldn't. They didn't want her to walk while she was on the strong pain medicine they were pumping through her veins.
Little did they know that popping pills was one of her pastimes. The medicine that they gave her was something that she could take and function fully.

She tossed and turned on the cold mattress the hospital called a bed until she couldn't take it anymore. She searched through her things until she found her cell phone, then she powered it on. She knew she couldn't sit in the room any longer. She had shit to do and being a prisoner wasn't one of them. Willow stood up and her fingers dialed numbers.

“What's up?” Choice said as she answered the phone.

“Bitch, I need a favor,” Willow told her, getting right to it.

“Where the fuck you been for the past couple of days, bitch?” Choice screamed through the phone. “Nobody has seen you or nothing. What's the deal?”

“Some niggas blasted on me and Duke.” She left the fact that Kail had shot her out of the equation. The last thing she wanted to do was ruin the reputation of The Pink Lip Bandits.

Choice gasped. “Bitch, you lying.”

“No, I'm dead-ass serious. My neck and shoulder fucked off and Duke is in ICU. They shot him three times.”

“Bitch, you lying,” she continued to say, hoping that Willow wasn't telling the truth.

“I wish I was.”

“Where are you?” Choice asked.

“In the hospital and I'm supposed to get up out of here tomorrow, but I can't stay here tonight,” she told her, tossing everything she had on the night of the shooting in the wastebasket. “I need some clothes, bitch, and something nice. I been having on this ugly-ass gown and I need something to slip on.”

“Where is Kail?” she asked.

“Handling some business, so I'm going to need a ride home, too.”

“What hospital are you at?”

“I'm at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital,” Willow told her as a nurse barged in.

“Ms. Davis, you can't be out of bed,” the nurse said as she sped over to where Willow was standing.

“Get here fast,” she said to Choice before hanging up the phone.

“Ms. Davis, please, get back in bed.”

“Look, bitch,” she told the nurse, losing her cool, “get the fuck out of my face with those orders. What you can do is get your ass to that nurses station and bring me some release forms to sign.”

“This is your second wound. This is your second visit here. You need to rest. The doctor didn't release you and—”

“I don't give a fuck what the doctor did,” Willow interrupted, while raising her voice. “I'm leaving if I do, or if I don't, sign those papers.”

The nurse left the room and returned minutes later with the release forms. Willow didn't even give her a chance to explain. She signed everywhere she was supposed to, and the nurse walked off as fast as she could out of the room. Willow followed behind her as the pain from her new wound ached as she walked to the elevators.

She hit the button to go to the second floor to see Duke. Nothing mattered more at that moment; not even her parading around in the hideous hospital gown that she was wearing. Her hair was a mess, she didn't have on any makeup, her nails were chipped, but none of that mattered as the elevators slowly lowered.

Everything started going in slow motion for Willow once the elevator beeped and the doors opened to the intensive care unit. Everything felt so surreal; the walk to the nurse's station seemed as if it took forever. At the nurse's station, her stomach started
twisting. She started second-guessing if she wanted to see him as the ticking from the clock on the wall boomed in her ears.

“Can I help you?” a nurse asked as their eyes met.

“I'm here to see Demarcus Williams.” Willow's cell phone vibrated in her hand.

“What is your relationship to the patient?” the nurse questioned as she looked at the gown and bandages on Willow.

“His wife,” she lied.

“Right this way.” The nurse got up and walked with intentions of Willow following her.

The whole floor gave off an eerie feeling. It was like death was every which way you turned. Willow didn't know what she was going to see or how she was going to react.

“Here we are,” the nurse said as she stopped in a doorway with a curtain blocking it from the hallway. “He is beyond this curtain.”

The nurse gave a wry smile and left Willow standing there. Fear took over her body as she stood, shaking like a leaf on a tree on a windy night. She put her hand on the curtain, but she couldn't pry it open, no matter how hard she tried.
Open it, bitch, open it
, she thought to herself as her cell phone started to vibrate again.

She clenched her teeth as she slowly opened up the curtain. She could see Duke stretched out on the same rigid bed that she was imprisoned in earlier. His body was swollen and tubes were down his throat. As she got closer, she could see how bruised his body was.

Willow swallowed hard as she grabbed one of his hands with her own. She couldn't get it together as guilt overtook her. She felt like she should have never let them sit in front of his building for that long. She thought she'd helped whoever it was trying to kill him. She'd made Duke an easy target.

“I promise you, I will find whoever did this. And, when I do,
Duke, I will make them pay,” she whispered into his ear, hoping that he could hear her.

She wiped her tears away as the nurse came into the room. She had a plastic bag in her hand and a sorrowful look on her face. She approached with caution as she handed Willow the bag.

“This is all of his belongings.” She looked right at her but past her at the same time.

“Shouldn't you keep all of that here for when he comes to?” Willow asked.

“It doesn't look good for your husband, ma'am. He isn't responding to any of our treatments and the doctor said it may take more than a miracle for him to recover.”

“So, he's going to die?” Willow asked, keeping her composure.

“That's a possibility.” She saw the tears in Willow's eyes.

Willow looked through the plastic bag and it had all of his belongings from the previous night. His wallet, jewelry, and other items filled the small bag. She gave him a kiss on the forehead and left the room.

Her cell phone started to vibrate again, but she was so emotionally drained that she couldn't answer it. It was Choice from the caller ID. She headed to the elevator and then to the main entrance of the hospital. Upon exiting the sliding double doors, she could see Choice parked in a handicapped spot with her man sitting in the passenger seat of her brand-new Lexus.

Willow was a little skeptical. Choice had always talked about her man, but neither she nor Kail had ever met him. From what Choice always said about him, he was into the streets. As Willow got closer, her heart fell to her feet. Sitting in the passenger side of the car was Craig, the man she'd met in Hawaii with whom she'd had a fling on the plane.

“Bitch, you are a mess,” Choice said after Willow approached the car.

She opened the door and sat in the backseat. “I know.” She looked in the bag that Choice had waiting for her. “Do you have some green?” she asked her as Choice reversed and drove off.

“Of course, my nigga, but I gotta stop by the corner store to get some cigars. But, what happened? Are you going to be okay?”

“I will be.” Willow slipped into the dress Choice had brought her, with the tag still intact, while trying to stay out of the view of the mystery man. “I just hope Duke will be okay.”

“He will be, girl.” Choice looked into the rearview mirror. “Oh, Willow, I want to introduce you to my fiancé. Willow, this is Craig, and Craig, this is Willow.”

“What's up?” Craig said, never looking back at her.

“Nice to meet you,” Willow said as she looked at him sideways, the pain from changing her clothes hitting her like a dog being hit by a car.

They rode to Choice's hood and stopped at the store everyone called the green store because of its pale pea-green color. It had boosters, prostitutes, dope boys, and anything else needed for everyday hood life. Choice parked her red Lexus sitting on twenty-four's and got out to go into the store.

“Willow, you straight?” Craig asked her after moving the rearview mirror to look.

“I guess so,” she answered while freeing her hair from the ponytail. “I never thought I'd see you again.” She closed her eyes to try to endure the pain.

“I didn't think I'd see you again either.” Craig turned around and looked at her. “I guess I shouldn't have judged the cover, huh?”

“I guess not.” Willow saw one of his hands wrapped in bandages; her eyes now opened. “What happened to your hand?”

“Nothing,” he said, changing the subject and turning back to look out the front window. “So do you know who blew heat at y'all?”

“No, I don't know, do you?” she asked, aware that he was bad news.

“If I knew,” he said as he turned around to look at her, “so would you. Don't play me like I'm some bitch made-ass nigga who wouldn't tell you what I know.”

“I don't know that.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I don't know you like that, so I really can't say what you would do.”

“Watch out with that bullshit.” He grinned, exposing the pearly whites in his mouth. “I'm real.”

“A lot of niggas say they real but they not.” Willow leaned back into the seat.

“I ain't a lot of niggas,” he said as his mind went back to the day on the airplane. “You know that was more to me than just a fuck.”

“It was?” she asked while their eyes locked through the rearview mirror.

Before he could answer, Choice came out of the store, and hopped back inside the car. She tossed the sack of weed and the cigars to Willow, because nobody rolled a blunt like she did. She drove off to a chill spot and they smoked until it was almost time for the sun to come up.

“You wanna go home?” Choice asked her as she pulled off from their smoking spot. “Or, do you wanna crash at my place with me and Craig?”

“No, I'm good; I'll just go home.” Willow swung her hands softly in the air. “Besides, we've been smoking for a couple hours and after the night I just had, I need to lay in my own bed.”

Choice pulled up to Willow's condo building as the sun resurfaced into the sky. Images of Duke's body convulsing in the front seat of his Mercedes flashed over and over in Willow's head as she got out of the Lexus.

“I'm gon' fuck with you and Kail when I wake up.” Choice yawned. “Call me if you need anything, bitch.”

“Yeah.” Willow closed her door and watched them speed off.

She closed her eyes longer than normal to get a grip on the pain she was feeling as she stepped onto the sidewalk from the street. She walked groggily into the building and it seemed as if it took hours to make it to her door.

She eased the key inside of the knob and opened the door. She tiptoed to her room, not wanting to wake Kail up if she was there. Kail would have a fit that she'd left the hospital sooner than she was supposed to. Her nagging was something Willow didn't want to hear, especially since they had beef at the moment.

She flopped down onto her bed, which felt better than sex in that very second. She opened up the plastic bag that the nurse had given her and pulled Duke's wallet out. She took his driver's license out and looked at him while he was in a better state than he was in now.