Satin Nights

by Karen E. Quinones Miller

  “Hey.”

  “Did you make your flight okay? Are you in D.C. now?” Regina asked as she twirled the telephone cord around her fingers and avoided looking at the women in the kitchen.

  “Yeah to both,” Charles said curtly. “But that’s not why I’m calling. I want to talk to you about your friend. I didn’t want to bring it up last night in front of the kids, but I just need to know if you’ve lost your freaking mind.”

  Regina sighed. “I have company right now, Charles. Can you call me back later so we can talk?”

  “No, because I’m not giving you the opportunity to check your caller ID and not take my calls the way you did yesterday after you left the restaurant,” Charles said coldly.

  “Well, then, let me run upstairs so I can take this call in my bedroom, because—”

  “Don’t bother. I’m not going to keep you but a minute. I just want an answer to my question. What the hell is wrong with you bringing a gangsta like Joseph Blayton around my daughter?”

  Regina looked around to see if Puddin’ or Tamika was listening to the conversation, but they seemed engrossed in their own discussion. “Look, I’m not in the mood to argue at the moment,” she said in a low voice. “But let me just say that number one, no matter what you might have heard, he’s not a thug, and number two, he doesn’t have anything to do with your daughter. I don’t bring him around here.”

  “Well, the way I heard it, Joseph Blayton—or Little Joe, as everyone seems to call him—is one of the biggest heroin dealers in New York,” Charles snarled.

  “Was,” Regina corrected him. “And that was only alleged, never proven. And again, I’m not going to argue about this. Little Joe is a very old friend of mine, and I’m not going to drop him simply because you don’t approve.”

  “Don’t give me that ‘alleged’ crap, Regina. I’ve been on the Internet and looked up old news clippings on this punk. They may not have made a good case against him, but there’s no doubt about his activities.” Charles was all but shouting into the telephone. “And this is not about my approval. After all, like you keep reminding me, I don’t have any more claim to you. I don’t give a shit about what you do. I’m worried about you having people like that around my daughter. If you want to hang out with lowlifes like Blayton, then you—”

  “It was nice talking to you, Charles. Give me a call when you get back from D.C., won’t you?” Regina said pleasantly before hanging up. She turned back to her women in the kitchen. “Now, as I was saying—,” she began.

  Ring.

  Regina cut her eyes at the telephone and considered not answering, but then suddenly picked up and brought the receiver to her ear. “Hello,” she said brusquely.

  “Hey you,” the voice on the other end said.

  “Hey you back.” Regina looked over at Puddin’ and Tamika, who were settling in at the kitchen table. “Hold on for a minute while I change phones, okay?”

  “Nah, don’t do that. I’m only gonna be on for a minute,” Little Joe replied. “I just wanna make sure Tamika and her family’s okay.”

  “They’re all fine. In fact, Tamika’s over here right now.” Regina took her mouth away from the phone. “Hey, guys,” she called to Tamika and Puddin’, “Little Joe says hello.”

  “Tell him hello back,” Tamika responded with a wave.

  “Tamika and Puddin’ say hello,” Regina told Joe.

  “Thanks for putting words into my mouth,” Little Joe said in a sarcasm-filled voice. “And for the record, I still don’t appreciate that shit you pulled yesterday.”

  Regina fingered the telephone cord. “Um, let me hurry up and change phones real quick so we can talk.”

  “Nah. I’m getting off,” Little Joe said laconically. “I’m flying to Beverly Hills tonight. I should be back in a couple of days.”

  “Really?” Regina couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “What are you going out there for?”

  “Remember that movie producer guy that was at that club party a little while back?”

  “Oh yeah, what’s his name . . .”

  “Tecumseh Joseph. Yeah. Well, he talked me into flying out there for a little sit-down to discuss possibilities. Sent me two first-class tickets.”

  “Two?” Regina chewed her lip, knowing what was coming next. Of course, Little Joe wanted her to go, but she couldn’t abandon Tamika right now, and anyway, she couldn’t just drop everything on a moment’s notice and fly across the country. But damn, she thought, she’d never been to Beverly Hills. It would be nice—

  “Yeah, two. I’m gonna take one of my boys, since it’s pretty obvious you and I need to take a break from each other so you can get your head straight and decide what the fuck you wanna do.”

  “Oh,” was all Regina could think to say. “Well, I hope you have a good time and everything.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, and, um . . . look, I’m really sorry about yesterday,” Regina said slowly. “Make sure you call me when you get back so we can really talk, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. Talk to you then.”

  Regina quietly hung up and went and sat at the kitchen table with Tamika and Puddin’. “So, anyway . . . as I was saying, Puddin’—”

  Puddin’ cut her off with a wicked grin. “So you hung up on Charles, and then Little Joe hung up on you, huh? That’s fucked-up.”

  Regina’s mouth dropped in surprise. “What?”

  “Oh come on.” Puddin’ sucked her teeth. “I didn’t hear everything, but I heard enough to figure that shit out.”

  “Eavesdropping skank,” Regina muttered.

  “So what’s going on? Are they demanding that you choose between them?” Tamika asked before Puddin’ could respond to the insult.

  “They’re just trying to drive me nuts, and doing a good job of it, I might add,” Regina said with a sigh. “All this serious stuff going on, Tamika . . . with you and your family, Yvonne and Robert, and Brenda and Ray-Ray, and then I have to get shit from them. Charles is blowing a gasket because he thinks I’m bringing Little Joe, who he calls a gangsta, around Camille. Which”—she looked pointedly at Tamika—“you know I’m not.”

  Tamika nodded sympathetically.

  “And Little Joe is busy telling me off because he thinks I’m ashamed of him since I didn’t introduce him to Charles or David,” Regina continued.

  “Well, are you?” Puddin’ asked in a flippant tone.

  “Am I what?”

  “Are you ashamed of Little Joe?”

  “No, of course not,” Regina said in a defensive tone. “I’ve never been ashamed of him.”

  “Well, why didn’t you make the introductions, then?” Tamika asked in a puzzled voice.

  “How the hell do I know?” Regina waved her hand dismissively. “Like I said, there’s just been so much crap going on that I don’t even know what I’m doing or not doing or why or why not. Ya know?”

  Tamika shrugged but gave Puddin’ a knowing look, which she had to realize Regina couldn’t miss but would decide to ignore.

  chapter fifteen

  Aunt Gina, wake up! Tamika’s downstairs and she said it’s an emergency!”

  “What? What?” Regina said sleepily as she turned over in the bed to face her niece. The words suddenly registered, and Regina jumped up from the bed. “What!?”

  She pushed past Renee and ran down the stairs in her nightgown. “Tamika, oh my God. What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?”

  “It’s not me,” Tamika said, rushing to the bottom of the stairs to meet Regina. “It’s Yvonne. We gotta get over there quick. I’ve been trying to call you, but the phone kept going straight to voice mail.”

  “I think you accidentally knocked the phone in your bedroom off the hook,” Renee told Regina as she ran down the stairs toward them. “I just put it back on.”

  “Mrs. Evans across the street is watching the kids, and David’s outside in the car waiting for us. Hurry up and get some clothes on.”

  “But
what happened?” Regina was still dazed from waking up in a shock.

  “Robert just beat the crap out of Yvonne,” Tamika said in a rush. “She sounds real bad off, but she won’t go to the hospital. We gotta get there quick.”

  “Right, right.” Regina nodded. “Ray-Ray, can you and Liz watch Camille until I get back?”

  “Aunt Gina . . .”

  “Right, right, right,” Regina said as she started running up the stairs. “I forgot. She’s spending the weekend with Charles. Sorry.”

  “Hurry up!” Tamika shouted

  “I’m hurrying. I’m hurrying.”

  “What the fuck? Oh my God,” Regina cried when Yvonne opened the door. Both of the woman’s eyes were swollen almost shut, there was a massive gash across her forehead, and her cheeks were so badly bruised that they looked black. Her hair was matted with blood, and when Yvonne opened her bloody, puffy lips to talk, they revealed a gap where three of her top teeth should have been.

  “He . . . he . . .” Yvonne leaned against the door, then fell into Regina’s arms, crying hysterically. “He beat me. He just went crazy. I thought he was going to kill me. He kept hitting and kicking me until I passed out. Thank God, Johnny’s over at Mama’s house. He might have hurt him, too.”

  David gently pried Yvonne out of Regina’s arms, picked her up, and carried her to the couch. The room looked like it had been hit by a cyclone. All of Yvonne’s new furniture and statues were smashed, and the rug was littered with shattered glass. The curtains had been pulled down from the rods, one of the windows was broken, and the television screen had been kicked in.

  “How . . . why . . . what set him off?” Regina asked in bewilderment as she started trying to right some of the chairs.

  “Because it took me so long to get him out of jail.” Yvonne put her hand on her forehead, then grimaced in pain. “I told him it took me time to raise all of the bail money, but he said I left him in there to punish him. And of course”—she started crying—“and of course, he was high, so that didn’t help matters any.”

  “Tamika,” David said, “call 911 and get an ambulance over here quick.”

  “No, I don’t want to go to the hospital,” Yvonne said as she struggled to sit up.

  “Honey, look, that doesn’t make sense. You’ve got to see a doctor,” Regina said, stroking Yvonne’s matted hair. “You might have some internal injuries or something.”

  “No, I can’t go.” Yvonne covered her face with her hands. “I’m okay. I just need to get some rest. I’ll be better in the morning.”

  “Better in the morning?” Regina reached inside her pocketbook and pulled out a makeup compact, which she snapped open. “Take a look in the mirror and tell me that some rest is going to make all this better.”

  “No!” Yvonne pushed the compact away without looking. “I can’t go.”

  “Why not, sweetie?” Tamika said as she sat down next to Yvonne.

  “Because I can’t!” Yvonne said through her tears. When she looked up and noticed David pushing the buttons on his cell phone, she suddenly reached out and knocked the phone from his hands. “Don’t call an ambulance,” she screamed. “I can’t go!”

  Regina jumped to her feet. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Yvonne? We gotta get your ass to the hospital. And we’re gonna get you there even if we have to tie you up and throw you in Tamika’s car.”

  “You don’t understand.” Yvonne pulled her battered body from the couch and slowly walked over to the love seat and sat back down. “I’d be too embarrassed.”

  Tamika walked over to her and knelt down. “Yvonne, there’s no reason to be embarrassed, girl.”

  “Like I said, you don’t understand.” Yvonne wiped her eyes. “I’d be embarrassed because I’ve been to the hospital twice in the last month already.”

  “What?” Regina almost shouted.

  “That crazy bastard,” David growled as he slammed his fist into the back of the couch. “I’m going to kill him when I see him.”

  “But . . . I mean, we’ve never seen any bruises on you,” Tamika said in a puzzled tone.

  “One time he knocked me down and kicked me in my stomach and kidneys, and I had to go to the hospital because I started urinating blood,” Yvonne said through her sniffles. “Another time he punched me in the chest and bruised one of my ribs.”

  “Oh, Yvonne,” Regina said sadly. “I feel so bad. Here we are your best friends, and we didn’t even realize what’s been going on.”

  “No one did,” Yvonne sobbed. “I think Mama suspects. I’m sure that’s why she’s been insisting on Johnny staying with her all the time lately.

  “Both times they asked me at the hospital if I was experiencing domestic abuse, and both times I told them no, that I was horseplaying around some kids. I know they didn’t believe me, but . . .” Yvonne shrugged. “But how can I go back looking like this?”

  “But, Yvonne—” David started.

  “No!” Yvonne shouted. “I’m not. Do you know what it feels like? I’m supposed to be this intelligent, professional woman, and I have to admit to those people that I’ve not only been beat up by my boyfriend three times, but I’ve been too stupid to press charges, or even to leave him. I’m not going to do it.”

  David rubbed his chin for a moment, then wearily sat down next to her. “Yvonne, you don’t know how bad I’m feeling right now. To know that someone I’ve known since high school could do this to you. I mean, man.” He shook his head. “And I know you’re confused right now, and hurting inside and out, but you can’t just sit here and let him make you a victim.” David put his arm around her and pulled her close. “You know what I would do if someone did this to one of my sisters? I’d kick their funky ass. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do to Robert as soon as I see him. But first, if it were my sister, I’d tell her that she’d have to get over her feelings of embarrassment and go to the hospital. Because her health is important. Not just for her, but for her kids. That’s what I’d tell her. And that’s what I’m telling you.” He gave her arm a little squeeze. “Because you’re like a sister to me. And I love you, Yvonne. And I need you to be okay. And your friends need you to be okay. And most importantly, your son needs you to be okay. So let’s get to the hospital so we know that you’re really okay.” He gently kissed her on top of her head. “Okay?”

  Yvonne looked at Regina and Tamika, then back at David. “Okay,” she finally said with a nod.

  “Holy fuck!”

  Everyone looked up to see Puddin’ standing in the doorway, her mouth gaping as she looked over the living room. She slowly walked to the center of the room and did a silent slow turn. When she finally faced the love seat and got a good look at Yvonne, she almost fell backward. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she screamed as she ran over and grabbed Yvonne to her chest. “Oh my God. What the fuck. Oh my God, what the fuck.”

  “Puddin’, you’re hurting her,” Regina cried as Yvonne struggled to break free.

  “That motherfucker did this to you?” Tears filling Puddin’s eyes, she let go of Yvonne and stood up. “Where is he? I’m going to fucking kill him. Where the fuck is he?”

  “I don’t know. He left after I passed out,” Yvonne said as Tamika helped her back into a sitting position on the love seat.

  “He knocked you unconscious?” Puddin’ peered at her. “Oh shit, he knocked your fucking teeth out? Your fucking teeth?”

  Puddin’ covered her mouth with her hands as tears streamed down her face and her body began to shake. “I’m going to kill him,” she said softly. “I’m going to go get a gun, I’m going to hunt him down, and I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “Puddin’, calm down,” David said.

  “Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down,” Puddin’ screamed, and advanced toward him with her fists balled. “Your fucking friend almost killed my girl, so don’t fucking tell me to calm down.”

  David put his hands up in front of his chest in a form of surrender and backed up. Regina jumped
between them, grabbed Puddin’, and propelled her backward toward the couch and pushed her down.

  “We’re all fucked-up about this, but you gotta cool out. David’s going to drive us all to the hospital now, and then Yvonne’s pressing charges against Robert. The police are going to take care of his ass.”

  “Fuck the police, I’m going to shove my foot straight up his ass as soon as I catch up with him,” Puddin’ said, snatching up her pocketbook from the floor.

  “You know,” David told Regina and Tamika, “Robert better hope that the police or I get to him before Puddin’ does, because I swear, as big as I am, I wouldn’t want to tangle with that girl.”

  “Bigger men than you have found the truth in that statement,” Regina said. “The stories I could tell.”

  “Damn, it’s three o’clock already. We spent three hours in the hospital. I still wish Yvonne had let them keep her overnight,” Regina told Puddin’ in the back of a taxicab. “But at least she has sense enough not to go back to her apartment. There’s no telling if that maniac is going to show back up. I’m glad she let David and Tamika take her to Mama Tee’s.”

  “I just don’t see why we couldn’t have gone along,” Puddin’ grumbled.

  “Because Mama Tee’s going to be upset enough when she sees Yvonne. She’s not going to need you adding fuel to her fire, and you don’t know how to stop throwing gasoline.”

  The taxi pulled into her block, and Regina told the driver, “Right here.” She wearily grabbed her purse and paid the fare showing on the meter. “Okay, you have enough money to get you back uptown, Puddin’?”

  “Regina,” Puddin’ said urgently, “your front door is wide open.”

  “What?” Regina jumped out the cab and ran up the brownstone steps with Puddin’ on her heels.

  In the vestibule Regina reached into the umbrella stand and pulled out the baseball bat she kept hidden there. “Ray-Ray? Liz?” she called out as she cautiously entered the house.

  There was no verbal answer, but she could hear a series of grunts and moans coming from the living room. She threw open the door and gasped. Liz lay either unconscious or dead on the floor, and a few feet away, also on the floor, was a semiconscious Renee, with a crazed bare-chested Robert tugging at her panties. The man seemed oblivious to them as he grunted and smacked his lips while alternately looking down at the moaning Renee and up at the ceiling.