Never Again, No More 2

by Untamed

  She shrugged and lifted apologetic eyes to Trinity before placing both her hands atop hers. “I did what I thought I needed to do. I didn’t say anything to you or to anybody because I was embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing, and most importantly, I never wanted to betray you, Trin. You gotta know that. I didn’t want to audition. I just didn’t know what else to do. But I never wanted to hurt you or our friendship. You are my bestie for life.”

  Hearing Lucinda’s heartfelt plea softened all of us, especially Trinity. The huff deflated from Trinity, and she released a sigh, then embraced Lucinda tightly. “It’s all right,” she consoled her, then pulled back and looked at her as she held her by her shoulders. “Honestly, I was more pissed that you felt you couldn’t tell me. How could you trust Pooch over any of us? Over me?”

  That part. We all nodded in agreement. I got that she was embarrassed and didn’t want to tell others, but this was us. The four amigas. Even if she didn’t tell LaMeka or me, she should’ve known she could go to Trinity. They’d been best friends forever. There was nothing that they couldn’t share. Trinity would’ve been there for her hands down.

  She hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know. I really wasn’t thinking. I didn’t want you to be mad with me, I guess. But one thing’s for sure: it wasn’t about trusting him. At the time, I was desperate for a way out of my situation, that’s all,” Lucinda admitted.

  Her explanation made sense. All things aside, Lucinda had always been the type to do what she had to do for Nadia. Besides, who were we to judge? None of us were in good standing with our decisions of late, and I could only imagine being in a financial struggle only to get fired. Lucinda may have been wrong, but desperate doesn’t care about wrong or right. It cares about survival. And that’s all she had tried to do—survive.

  “Are you still stripping?” I asked because whether she wanted to or not, she would accept my financial assistance. I would not allow her to continue to degrade herself at some damn Club Moet.

  “Hell no. I got a job,” she said with a slight smile.

  “Where?” we asked.

  “Doing medical claims at home. My old boss, Mr. Sharper, hooked me up.” She smiled, starry-eyed.

  We all glanced at each other knowingly. Then Trinity grinned. “I know that fucking smile. It got bright as hell when you mentioned that fine-ass Mr. Sharper. Spill that shit.”

  Mm-hmm, Lucinda’s ex-supervisor was fine as hell. And the look on her face told us he’d helped her with much more than a new job. We sat back in anticipation for the scoop on this new development.

  A blush flashed in Lucinda’s cheeks, and she couldn’t help but giggle. “There’s not much to say, chicas.” She shrugged as we all gave her the “spill the tea” look. “I’ll admit, Aldris is a good man. He really bent over backward to get me that job, and umm, he wants to take me out.”

  Finally, something good to celebrate! Her good news caused a smile to grace all of our faces. Excitedly, I asked, “Good! You going, right?”

  She shrugged. “I said I was. I mean, he ain’t one of these hood dudes we used to fuckin’ with. I should want better, but a hood dude is all I’m used to. And full disclosure, he saw me in Club Moet, so I am ashamed of that, too. I don’t know. I just don’t feel like I’m good enough for someone like Aldris.”

  To hear she thought she wasn’t good enough was disheartening, and Trinity confirmed what we all thought. “You are more than good enough,” Trinity said to her. “You may be from the hood, but on the real, you handle yours, and any nigga with two blind eyes can see you a good catch.” LaMeka and I chimed in with our agreement.

  She put her hands up, shaking her head in disagreement. “Wait, y’all. But he is different. He’s educated and successful. What can I offer him?” Lucinda asked, staring blankly at the coffee table.

  Placing my hand on her face, I lifted her chin so that we were eye to eye and I could encourage her. “Go out with him and find out.”

  “I don’t know—”

  Out of nowhere, LaMeka huffed and blew up on us. “Y’all bitches get on my nerves,” she blurted out.

  Appalled, we all gasped and looked at LaMeka as if she were crazy. She’d been unusually quiet, but this was totally out of character.

  “Fuck is all that about?” Trinity asked.

  “Yeah,” Lucinda and I agreed.

  For a few moments, LaMeka just stood there, staring at us with a blank expression on her face. It was as if she were in a trance. Then suddenly, her eyes blinked rapidly and instantly, she began crying, like really heart-wrenching crying. I tried to lean over and console her, but she pushed me away. She grabbed a Kleenex and dabbed her eyes and then looked at all of us as if she could whip our asses.

  “The only person who I remotely feel sorry for is Trinity, and that’s because she really is in a dangerous situation with Pooch, but still, all you have to do is leave that nigga. All three of you are sitting up here, acting like the world is on your shoulders when it ain’t,” she said and turned to Trinity. “If you love Dreads, leave with his ass. You got your own ass caught up following up Pooch’s lame-ass promises when you knew he wasn’t nothing but a dope boy.”

  Next, she directed her attention to Lucinda. “And you, give that damn man a chance. How many of us can say that a man like that would even be interested in us? He got you a job and all. Please miss me with that drama, Lu. For the first time since Raul, you have a chance at something special. Stop being stupid.”

  Then, she faced me. “But you are the worst of all, Charice. I watched you nearly break down when Ryan left you with three kids and having to abort a fourth. Of all of us, you graduated and went to college with three kids. I’ve seen you struggle with those kids and push your dreams to the side just to get a decent-paying job, and I admired that. You were the encouragement for every teenage mother and single parent around. Now you up here trippin’ off the fact that the media has put your fucking relationship with a multimillionaire on blast. Hiding behind your five-hundred-dollar shades and tinting the windows of your eighty-thousand-dollar SUV. For what? You fucking made it! You got a baby daddy who now loves his kids and takes damn good care of them, and a rich man who loves you regardless of the fact that he was dead-ass wrong for hooking up with your ass! Please. Your only decision these days is whether or not you want diamonds or pearls on your Vera Wang original wedding dress, and you worried about looking bad on the news? Oh, whatever shall the fuck you do? You wasn’t worried about the news or Ryan when you was flying your ass in and out of Dallas and to Paradise Island! Don’t even act like that shit bothers you now. Some of us have real shit to worry about,” LaMeka spewed at me.

  Lucinda and Trinity stared at her with their mouths wide open, unable to believe that LaMeka just said that. Of all of us, LaMeka was the quiet one, the super-sensitive one, the one who always encouraged people and gave out empathy. Now she all but accused us of being self-absorbed. Granted, my situation may not have been the hellacious situation that Trinity was in or that Lucinda had to face, but it was still a situation to me, and nobody had the right to discount it regardless of what they were going through.

  “Now hold the fuck up, LaMeka,” I started. “You are the one who needs a fucking reality check! I will admit that of all our situations, I’d rather be in my own. You’re right. My baby daddy is rich, and so is my man, but money ain’t everything. All of us are after the same thing, peace of mind, and right now, none of us have that. Now I’m sorry you had to endure the hell you did behind Tony’s raggedy ass, but let’s be real. The Tony Light we knew in high school ain’t the same Tony he is now. You’ve been out of high school for years, LaMeka. You should’ve been woke up on that shit! None of us made you stick around while Tony tagged on your ass, and I do remember that both Trinity and I begged you to leave. We both had the funds to help you get set up, but you chose to stick around hoping and wishing. Now I’m not knocking that, because I’ve been there. We all know Ryan was my heart long after
everybody had given up on him, but what I’m telling you is I won’t knock the fork out of your hand if you don’t snatch the spoon out of mine. We all made fucked-up decisions behind a nigga, and we all deserve happiness. So pour out your little fucking cup of haterade, put your big-girl drawers on, and handle that shit with Tony,” I said sternly with a finger point and an eye roll.

  “Ay, mami!” Lucinda said, high-fiving me. “I couldn’t have said that shit better myself.” She looked over at LaMeka. “The fact still remains that I have to deal with Raul, and you speaking up on Aldris as if it’s certain he’s the one. I haven’t even gone out with the man yet,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “And you talking about just leaving Pooch as if his ass ain’t one of the most notorious kingpins around. This nigga got judges and police on payroll, and I’m supposed to what? Trust in the legal system if he flips and tries to hurt me or my family? You trippin’, LaMeka. Tony done knocked the fucking sense out of yo’ head and shit,” Trinity countered with plenty of attitude.

  Tears welled up, and suddenly, LaMeka began to cry again. “But I’ll bet Aldris, Pooch, Terrence, Lincoln, nor Ryan may have brought y’all back the package.”

  My heart dropped to my toes, and I instantly grabbed LaMeka and hugged her. For the next few minutes, all any of us could do was cry silent tears. Talk about news that could change your entire perspective in an instant. I didn’t think emotions had ever taken over any of us so fast. But hearing that my bestie—scratch that, my sister—may have the package was enough to bring down my emotions like the Berlin Wall. We may have had to deal with a lot of things, but the possibility of death from an incurable disease wasn’t one of them. Forget all that mess I just said. Immediately, I wanted to do whatever I could for her.

  “Are you sure?” I finally asked. “How do you know this?”

  “I saw that bitch Kwanzie at the hospital. I was going to fire up on her ass, but she looked like death. Then she told me that she had it. She was getting help for her addictions and HIV. She says she got it sharing dirty needles with some junkie,” she explained to us.

  “You’re not sure if you have it?” Trinity asked with a worried expression on her face.

  She shrugged. “No, I’m not sure if I have it. Hell, I’m not sure if he has it. I got tested three months ago, and I spoke with the nurse, and she said a positive normally doesn’t show up for six months. I took another test, and it was inconclusive, so right now I’m in limbo. The sad part is I still haven’t told my sister. I guess now is probably the time to tell you all that I caught Misha and Tony screwing in my bed, raw.” We all gasped. “She was blazed, and so was he. That’s how everything came to a head. We had a confrontation, and I busted him in the face with his gun. Fearful that he’d kill me, Misha, the kids, and I ran and jumped in the car to leave. And he tried. He busted my car window out and nearly choked the life out of me, but I escaped. I dumped Misha off at our mom’s house, and after I left the hospital, I ended up at a shelter that Pastor Gaines recommended. Afterward, Pastor Gaines got me set up at this transitional house. I haven’t seen Tony since,” she explained.

  “I have to get Misha tested, but I’m so scared to do that. If she’s positive, then that means that Tony definitely is, unless she got it from Joe or some other knucklehead, which I doubt. But if Tony has it, then there is a strong possibility that I do too.” She broke down in tears again. “Y’all, I don’t want to die. I want to live. I want to find my soul mate and go to school and be somebody one day. I want to be a good mother and grow old watching my grandchildren play. I don’t want to go out like that. Not with the package.”

  We all sat there silently for what seemed like forever, holding hands and crying. Who knew when we all were playing hopscotch and double Dutch in the neighborhood that our lives would be so complicated? Who knew we’d meet boys who’d promise us everything under the heavens and put us through hell? Who knew that one night of youthful pleasure could lead to a lifetime of heartache and pain? We certainly didn’t, but here we were. In LaMeka’s case, that lifetime could be cut real short. For the first time since Ryan found out about Lincoln and me, I was thankful for my problems, because at least HIV was not on my list of them.

  Chapter Nine

  Lucinda

  “How many more dresses are you going to try on?” Nadia whined.

  “Just this last one,” I said, modeling another dress. “What about this one?”

  “I like it,” Nadia said plainly.

  “You’ve said you liked all five of them. I need a decision. Mom, please help me here. This date is important to me.” I threw my hands up.

  My nerves were a wreck as I prepared for my first date with Aldris. For the past few weeks, he’d been a constant factor in my life as he helped me prepare for my new job opportunity. No lie, Aldris had been absolutely amazing the last few weeks. He’d been more than amazing. He’d been a godsend.

  Everything was just as he’d stated when I called Suzette, and I interviewed the next day. After the interview, she hired me on the spot and at $18.50 per hour just as Aldris had said. First things first, after securing the new bag, he went shopping with me to ensure I had all the proper equipment needed to work from home. He helped me pick out the perfect PC in my price range, a Dell Inspiron with a twenty-inch flat-screen monitor, and he even sprang for an ergonomic keyboard for me. Of course, I didn’t want to accept it, but he insisted. Afterward, he came to my apartment and hooked the computer up for me and made sure the medical software was installed correctly. What I loved most was that I never asked him to do any of it. He just did it. This dude was truly a man, and I liked that about him above all else.

  The work hours totally worked out, because my classes were from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m., so I was able to drop Nadia off at school in the mornings, go to class, and then come home to cook and do my homework before I had to pick her up at three. Once she was home, I helped her with her homework and fed her, and then she read her books, watched TV, or played with her dolls until I could take a break to bathe her and send her to bed. After that, I worked usually until about one in the morning. Thankfully, Ms. Ana helped me out on Saturday mornings by picking up Nadia so that I could get some rest.

  After only two weeks on the job, I already had the game on lock. Once I found my groove and set my routine, I was able to finish my designated paperwork, do a little extra work, and still rest before it was time to clock out. Suzette and the doctors could only sing praises about me. I was doing—as they could say—the damn thang!

  What I was most excited about was that pay. I had to wait a paycheck in the hole, but ooh wee! My first paycheck was $1,480 for two weeks, and even after Uncle Sam and benefits, I still cleared $1,140. The doctors even decided to award me with a sign-on bonus of $500 because their claims processing had improved 3 percent just in the two weeks I’d worked for them. It felt good to pay all my bills and still have a whole paycheck left. Not only that, I still had $1,500 left in my account between my stripping money and my unemployment checks. Hell, I wasn’t Donald Trump rich, but a chica was sitting pretty and looking lovely. For the first time, in forever, I could breathe. Ahhh, didn’t that feel good? Yep! And that’s all I ever wanted.

  Now back to the next best thing—Aldris. We talked on the phone all the time. We were constantly making each other laugh, and he’d met Nadia, who thought he was “sooo” cute. He was such a gentleman, even postponing our date to give me time to settle into my new job and routine. I was in such awe of his patience that when he asked me if I would be free this Saturday night to go out to dinner and then to see the play A Raisin in the Sun, I easily accepted. Now my only issue was my attire.

  “Well, Mami, I said I like all five because I think you’re pretty in all five,” Nadia said to me.

  “Aww, sweetie, thank you,” I said, kissing her on the forehead.

  “She’s right, you know. You are smoking hot in all of them,” my mom agreed. “But if you must have a decision, I’d go with the class
ic black dress. The halter style accentuates your soft shoulders and your cleavage. It also accentuates your waistline, and the ankle length makes you look regal. And those silver stilettos are to die for!”

  My eyebrows jogged, and I pointed my index finger in agreement. “You’re right. And I don’t know what color he’s wearing, so I don’t want to be mismatched or loud.”

  “Do you want me to pin your hair up for you?” my mom asked.

  “Yes, would you please?”

  “Of course.”

  Since my mother was going to assist with my hair, I hurriedly bounded to the shower. Once I was out, I moisturized my body, put on my undergarments, then tossed on a button-down shirt so that she could begin on my hair.

  “You really like this Aldris fellow, huh?” my mom asked as she brushed my hair.

  Releasing a deep breath, I hoped to mask my inner feelings. “He’s nice.”

  My mother paused, and her lips curled at the corners. “You’re going through all this trouble for someone you think is just nice?” She eyed me, unconvinced, in the mirror.

  When I blushed, she poked my cheek. “Stop, Mama!”

  She laughed. “That’s the look I want to see! You like him, Lucinda. There’s nothing wrong with that. You made a mistake with Raul, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find someone.”

  No offense, but this advice from her was shocking to me. Of all people, my mother should have been the first one to denounce love. “How can you say that when your marriage ended in shambles?”

  “I haven’t given up hope that the man for me is still out there. What your father did discouraged me, of course. I thought Emilio and I would be together forever, but look at your abuelo and abuela. My parents have been together for fifty years. That is proof positive that real love, everlasting love, exists.”

  She finished pinning my hair, and I turned around. She lifted my chin up so that I was looking in her eyes. “If Mr. Aldris is worth it, then don’t let Raul or your father hold you back. Step out on faith that God will show you if Aldris is the man for you,” she schooled me as I fanned tears out of my eyes. “You look beautiful.”