by Zi'ere
“Morning Mama…” the boys mumbled as they tried to shake the sleep off of their bodies.
“Good morning my loves!” I kissed them both on the top of the head.
“Your clothes are at the foot of your beds, don’t forget to straighten those beds before you get dressed. Come to my room when you are done so I can do something to ya’lls hair.”
“Okay Mama.” They both recited at the same time.
After making sure both twins were fully awake and standing up right, I made my way further down the hall to the diva’s hot pink and zebra printed throne. My baby sister Zina was a twelve year old trendsetter in the fashion game and a pre- teen social butterfly. Zina possessed all of the material things that would back up her diva status. Her room was beautiful and reflected her love for all things pink and girly. I noticed that although Zina was a mini prima donna, she slept like an old man who worked twelve hour night shifts.
Since she got out of her baby crib I could not figure out how she was able to stay in the bed all night. Zina tossed and turned, going from the top of the bed to the bottom several times during the night. I knew for sure that I had tied up Zina’s hair up last night in a silk head wrap, but the head wrap was now on the floor beside the bed. I stood beside her bed watching her chest rise and fall while she was lying on her back, mouth wide open. If I was a practical jokester I would have dropped something in her mouth but that wasn’t my personality.
46
It wasn’t hard to tell that Zina was exhausted as well, as she continued to snore too loudly. So much noise for such a small person, she took her petite size from Angel. I called her name a few times to bring her back to life. Zina slept too wild, there was no way in hell I was going to put my hands on her. I had no desire to be swung on at six in the morning. The children all had different personalities, but the one trait they all had in common was that they all had genuine, respectful, and pure hearts.
All the kids knew that they all had a good solid hour before we would have to leave for school. Diva Zina would need every second of the time to bring herself to perfection fit to be seen in public. When she realized she was awake and that her big sister was standing over her, she smiled a big beautiful smile showing perfect white teeth that needed a toothbrush as soon as possible. I kissed her on the forehead and then exited the room. I smiled to myself as I walked out of the room which was also very clean and orderly.
Once in the hallway, I eyed Angel’s luggage again. I looked around before I lunged for the specific bag that I knew she kept all of her stolen items in. It was the only luggage piece with a lock on it. Many of the people Angel dealt with didn’t even know her real name so there was no way to know her real birthdate, but I knew every truth about her. I lined up the month, day, and last two of the birth year and popped open the box. I didn’t pay attention to the big score she’d completed. I only had a few seconds to get what I needed and disappear. There was a small bag full of diamonds.
One day somebody is going to kill her ass for the shit she does!
I grabbed three of the stacks of cash with the bank tabs still on them which was a cool thirty thousand dollars. I locked the case, scrambled the numbers up, and sprinted back to my bedroom.
My cell phone was going bananas and I knew exactly who it was by the ring tones. Johan was ‘My Boo’ by Usher and Alicia Keys. No one knew that except Zina who had made the change herself. According to her, Johan was to be my husband. I always came back at her with that I didn’t have time to go to the movies with a group of friends how was I going to entertain a boy. She always rolled her eyes at that point- always. At twelve, I was four soon to be five years older than her but I could tell already that she was going to give me a run for my money when it came time for her to date.
Jesus be a fence, I mumbled to myself.
47
Then the song “Never Would Have Made It” by Marvin Sapp began to play. That was the ring tone for our Grandparents, Angel’s Caucasian mother Cora and her African American father Johnny who were financially responsible for their four grandchildren whom they loved dearly but were too up in age to manage them on their own. Even they lived in a swanky elderly community that had registered nurses and aides on duty twenty- four hours a day and even on Jesus’ birthday.
At the stroke of six fifteen every morning, seven days a week Justin Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie” featuring Jay Z played as well. That was my ring tone for our father’s mother. Grandma Deloris Westin had nine children and some of them had no idea who their father was, just like our father. She was the cool and hip Granny that knew everything good and bad that went on in the world. If she closed her eyes today or tomorrow, she surely would have done her part in my life.
She taught me the hustle in my heart. What Angel wouldn’t do and Robert couldn’t do from prison, Grandma taught me how to go get and live well. Grandma Westin wasn’t interested in chasing peanuts, she dealt with commas or you were about to get cussed out. It was the hustle in many forms but one was just like the thirty thousand dollars I’d just hit Angel up for. Grandma was about survival. She did what she had to do to raise her children and then some of their children. The four of us never got to know Rob enough for her to take us under her wing for good, not to mention our other Grandparents wouldn’t allow it for a nanosecond.
I knew that they all were calling to make sure we were all okay and that we were still attending a long standing dinner date at Grandma Cora’s house tonight. I’d gotten away with not having to lie about Angel’s whereabouts all week. Tonight was going to be a different animal. Everything had to be disclosed in order for my plan to work. Grandma Deloris already knew Angel had left the four of us and gone outside of the country. She’d cooked and brought us four hearty plates for dinner every night. You never had to guess what she thought about Angel or Rob, she wasn’t impressed with either of them but she lived for her grandkids.
It’s good to know someone loves us that doesn’t have to force it.
I sent them all texts that we were fine and getting ready for school. The text would be fine for the moment but they were going to want to see us after school and that was fine. Like I said, today was Friday and she had not been back all week. I could have been a softie and cried but that wasn’t what Amaya Sirene Stevens was about. I was a hustla and I never depended on anyone for anything, not even Angel.
My expectations for her disappeared completely when I was ten years old realizing instead of playing with dolls, I was taking care of a six year old. Then two years later she dropped off newborn twins to me. I’d been handling shit ever since.
Fuck Angel!
Now that I was seventeen, I had stepped up even more to make sure the kids and I’s world was as normal as possible. Unfortunately I knew all of Angel’s missteps. They were constant reminders of the kind of woman I would never become and I would die trying to keep Zina from picking up her habits.
48
On Friday’s high school students had out of uniform day and I was too glad. That Christian uniform was a bit much. I picked out some skinny jeans, a cute t-shirt, and some Air Jordan’s to match. I wasn’t into showing off the teenage curves I had, so the outfit was fitting but not nearly as tight as her classmates wore their clothing. I had managed to get dressed in ten minutes flat. The majority of the time it took me to get ready for public was my hair.
As I waited for the flat iron to get hot, I got down on all fours to slide under my bed. The year before I had gotten a safe placed into a cut into the wall at the floor board behind my bed while Angel was away on one of her excursions. I entered the random digits for the security code, the door to the safe popped open revealing the nearly eighty thousand dollars inside that I’d saved just from randomly robbing Angel or any and all of the male strangers she’d brought to the house.
A few months ago, before she was hospitalized Angel had come home with one hundred thousand dollars in her designer bag. While she was passed out on only God knows what kind of alcohol or drugs
, I took some of the cash. I knew that stealing was a sin, a wrong, and even a crime. But, it was only one of the way I made sure we had what we needed and wanted, just another way to put food on the table or buy clothing for them.
I had a heart and I certainly knew right from wrong but when it came to Angel all of that went out the window. She didn’t give a damn so neither did I. If she got her ass beat over the thought of stealing money from these men, then that was an ass whippin I didn’t owe her ass for the week. In my eyes we were Even-Stevens. I took three hundred dollars and a blank check from our Grandparent’s account checkbook and shut the safe. Tuition was due and the senior Stevens’ always made sure it was paid even though I still busted Angel’s balls about it.
Even though Angel had not placed a dime into our hands, nor had she gone grocery shopping for us in months, I had enough cash to get us all clothed, fed, and sheltered for at least a year without any outside help. The real test would come today. If Angel was not present and accounted for by the time we got out of school, I had decided to take the kids and we would not be coming back. I could not risk waking up another day to an empty refrigerator or to a strange man walking around the house half naked. I was done with living in constant fear of what Angel would do next.
Besides, I was interested in knowing how long we would be missing before Angel would notice her kids were gone. I made it back to my bedroom and soon realized I had wasted enough time. I needed to get dressed quick. We would have to stop at Hardee’s to get sausage biscuits, hash browns, and orange juice before school. I was not ready to hear the complaints from the twins about the lunch situation, but I planned to make sure I stressed that today it would be the last time we would be without homemade lunches. I knew they trusted and respected me, if I said one thing to them they knew they could trust me.
49
Once the car was loaded, I was on a one track frame of mind for what was to become of the day. It was no wonder I almost ran over Johan who banged on the trunk of the car as he jumped out of the way.
“For him to be so smart he surely does some questionable things sometimes.” Zina spoke and rolled her eyes as she continued to text on her phone.
I had no idea how she’d even seen him, she didn’t even look up from the screen. Trae rolled down the window to chat with his buddy.
“Mama is upset and you know how she is about being late and you’re standing in the driveway like you are waiting on the city bus. You gotta be ready to meet your maker man!” The boys laughed including Johan.
“I need a ride to school.” He stuck his head in the window.
“Since when do you need a ride? Where is the swagged out Yukon?” I asked full of attitude.
“Why you all up in my bid? Can I ride or not smart pants?” I saw him look at the back of my head through the rearview mirror.
He was mesmerized by my looks. He loved when I flat ironed my hair and it flowed down my back. Then being the basketball freak he was, he knew jeans meant tennis shoes on my feet. The Jordan’s were a turn on for him as well. That is what was wrong with his truck. Not to mention, no one could resist Angel’s twin in skinny jeans. I was constantly told I looked just like my mother when she was my age, thin but with the right amount of everything. According to our God mom, Angel was hated on simply because of the way she looked. All the boys wanted her and she was only interested in books up to a certain grade then the tables turned. I made it my business not to allow my table a chance to move an inch.
Johan got settled in the back with the boys and helped them both conquer another level of programming on a game they were building. It was the twin’s conquest to design a computer program that would take care of their sisters for the rest of our lives. Considering all the contests and programming scholarships they’d won, it wasn’t impossible for them to be millionaire’s two times over by the time they hit puberty. In Hardee’s drive thru my cell phone began to ring. Zina dug it out of my purse with her eyes still glued on her own phone. I didn’t recognize the number and bad news hardly ever came from a number I knew. It was always the unknown numbers I had issues with.
“Hello?”
“Good morning Amaya.” His voice made my heart speed up.
It was Officer Ward on the line. I decided I wouldn’t get worked up because the police calling was definitely not a good thing.
“Good morning to you as well. What has happened to Angel now?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I should have cleared that up first. This is a social call not a call about your mother.”
“Wait a minute…what now?” I handed the cashier the two twenties Johan shoved in my face.
He was very territorial when it came to us and it didn’t matter who it was but overhearing a male’s voice on my phone no doubt had him agitated. After I handed over the money I turned and gave him a look of destruction. The last thing he wanted to do was make me mad.
“Yea, I was actually calling to check on you and the kids. I called Mrs. Westin and she advised me that you all had already left for school because you had to stop off for breakfast.”
“Dang, so you know all my business!” I never used foul language in front of the kids.
That didn’t change the fact that I wanted to know why he was taking such a special interest in a seventeen year- old girl and her three siblings.
“I’m sorry if I overstepped my boundaries. It’s just that I worry about you guys a lot.”
“Worry? Why would you do something like that?” I handed out drinks as they were passed to me by the cashier.
I threw Johan’s orange juice directly at his chest. The kids giggled.
“It’s just that I know Angel. I know your situation and I admire your strength to get through it all.” His voice was smooth.
He reminded me of Rob. He always talked gentle and smooth, even when he was chastising us it never sounded offensive.
“Can you tell me how you got my cell phone number? I know my Grandma didn’t give it to you.”
I spread strawberry jam all over my biscuit before I made a move to merge back into traffic.
“I have Angel’s phone records subpoenaed for the last five years, I have everyone’s number.” He said matter of factly.
“That’s creepy…” I responded my truth.
“Why didn’t you talk to anyone that called you this morning?”
It was official. The police man had tap danced on my last nerve for the day already.
“Look, I’m on my way to high school and I’m driving. We both know driving and talking on the phone is a bad combo right? So we will have to have this conversation at a later date and time when I see official documentation that says I have to talk to you about my relationship with Rob. Have a blessed day.”
50
I hit the button before he could put his moves on me to try to get me to open up to him. My life was complicated enough, I did not need another stranger trying to snake their way in to get to Angel to do her harm or lock her up for her laundry list of crimes. Johan was about as far outside of the family circle I could go and even he is doing too much nowadays. Just in case anyone in the car was questioning whether or not I wanted to talk about anything else, I turned up the music. I felt conflicted in my heart because I never shut the kids out. I had to get rid of this guy, we didn’t need his type of attention.
In the student parking lot at Tri-City Christian Academy in Chandler, Arizona it looked more like a car lot. All of the kids with a license and wealthy parents, drove foreign or souped up cars. I passed out twenty bucks to each of the kids and wished them all a good day, complete with fresh ‘I love you’s’ before we went our separate ways. Johan walked off and allowed me the space and time to spend with them before he walked back over to address me in private.
“Look, I’m at my limit for unpleasant conversations this morning…okay?” I was on the verge of tears.
“We been doing this for a long time Maya. When are you going to let me all the way in…you have to know I care about y
ou for real by now.”
I could only stare at him as he squatted before me on the ground while I sat in the driver’s seat of my car. He grabbed my hands and kissed them both.
“You have to know that I love you by now. I mean I’m in love with you Maya. You don’t have to do this alone anymore. I want to be with you to help you, to love you, give you a break, and you need all of that and more.”
The tears fell.
“I can’t be with you and you know that. I’m on the brink of losing it all right now, I can’t put anything else on my plate. Anyone else.”
“I’ve been on your plate and I don’t need your permission to do anything for you guys. You’re my family. That’s all there is too it. I know you are good at it so I’m going to let you get rid of ole boy…today. I will see you in chapel.”
He stood to his six foot three inch frame then bent down to give me a kiss on the forehead. Johan then strolled off with swagger I’d never seen before in him. He just so happened to have on the same pair of sneakers I had on but he was giving his basketball sweat gear a chance to hang on his body for the day. The tear that fell was now dried up. The desert heat and then realizing Johan was into me didn’t call for tears. I was now smiling. First day on the job and he has me smiling in five minutes.
You’re getting soft gurl!
My phone started to ring again, it is Grandma Deloris. I can’t possibly have a conversation with her on campus. As soon as the ringing ceased, it began again. This time it was Rob. I had less than five minutes to haul ass across campus to homeroom. School came before grown people. I really needed to call my Stevens’ Grandparents and I decided to do that as I sprinted to class.
“Good morning Grandmother. How was your night with Grand-dad?”
