Pushing Pause

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  “How’d you hear?” I asked, suspecting that it was probably Jalisa since we all go way back as friends.

  “So when you leaving?” he asked, not answering my question.

  “Damn, LaVon, can’t you at least try to put a little heart into it?” I asked.

  “What you want from me, shorty, to start crying and act like a punk or something?”

  “I didn’t say all that, but you acting like it’s no big deal, like you don’t even care that I’m leaving.”

  “’Cause it ain’t. You’re only moving to D.C. That’s, like, thirty-five minutes away. It’s not like you’re doing serious distance.”

  “Didn’t whoever tell you that my mom and dad are breaking up?”

  “Yeah, Chili told me. So what? Shit happens all the time,” he said.

  That snitch, now I was seriously beyond pissed off and LaVon with his dumb-ass didn’t even realize that he’d just confirmed that Chili told him I was moving.

  So now I’m thinking, what was her drama? I’d told her that I was gonna call LaVon, he was supposed to be my boyfriend, not hers. So why did she have to step up and tell him first?

  “So what you doing today?” he finally asked.

  “I gotta do some stuff, why.”

  “I was thinking about coming over later, a’ight?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be here.”

  “A’ight, see ya.”

  I closed my phone, disappointed. It used to be really nice being with LaVon, but lately he was just acting like another fool. All he cared about was basketball and getting some, and since I wasn’t putting out, I knew he was getting it from someone else, I just didn’t know who. Then Diamond came to mind.

  So now I was thinking back, Chili once told me months ago that Diamond was checking LaVon out right after her sweet sixteen birthday party, but I didn’t believe her at first.

  Then everything changed and Diamond started acting all crazy strange, so we just started dissing her. Jalisa kept being friends with her, but I was tired of dealing with her drama.

  Anyway, I got dressed and a few minutes later my mom came in and we had a conversation about what I wanted to pack to go where, to D.C. or to storage. She talked and I just nodded ’cause I had in my head that none of this was actually going to happen ’cause I was gonna fix this. I was gonna call my dad and make this right again.

  Later I called my dad’s cell phone like a million times, but he still didn’t return my calls. So I called his office again and his receptionist, Mrs. Taylor, connected me with his assistant, Courtney Lawson. Courtney used to be down, but she changed.

  She was like nine or ten years older than me. When she first got the job, she didn’t know anything. I even had to show her some stuff. But then a few months later, she started acting all important, like she just about owned the place. And now she was a snide-talking wannabe with serious delusions of grandeur, plus she had a thing for my dad, so he kept her around to stroke his ego, among other things.

  I knew he was doing her. Everybody knew.

  Once, one day last year, I dropped by his office in D.C. late after dance practice and found the two of them locked up in his office, took them close to five minutes to open the door and when he did his shirt was zipped up in his pants and Courtney had big red marks on her knees. Guess why? Skank. My mom must have known he was playing around on her. I didn’t know why my dad didn’t just fire her ass to keep the peace.

  So anyway, I asked to speak with my dad.

  “I’m sorry, your father isn’t available,” she said all cold and businesslike.

  “I know he’s busy, Courtney, but I need to talk to him now. So can you go get him out of whatever meeting he’s supposed to be in and tell him that his daughter is on the phone waiting,” I said, daring her to say something else.

  She put me on hold. I swear she came back ten minutes later. “He’s still unavailable. I’ll tell him you called. Is there anything else?”

  “Uh, yes, there’s something else, you let him know that I’m on my way down there—”

  “Coming down here won’t change the fact that he’s unavailable,” she interrupted. “He has meetings planned all day, and most are out of the office.”

  “Okay, fine, then tell him that I’m calling the police and reporting that my father beat me, then I’m calling the news and then this fat-ass list of clients I just found on his desk in his home office.”

  “Blackmail is so unbecoming, and I know for a fact that there is no client list on your father’s desk at home. I’ve been in his home office, I’ve seen his desk.”

  “Lying on your back or kneeling underneath,” I quipped under my breath, but loud enough for her to hear me. She didn’t reply, so I just let it lie there. “So are you sure that I don’t have a client list?” I opened my laptop, typed in a few keys, then pulled up my dad’s company’s client list. I smiled. I saved everything.

  “Positive,” she said, “so why don’t you go play with your little friends at the mall and let your father take care of his business, know what I mean? F-Y-I, don’t bluff if you can’t back it up.”

  “F-Y-I, there is a client list, aka James Lewis holiday card list, it includes names, addresses, phone numbers, wives’ and children’s names, and even likes and dislikes,” I told her. Then started running off client names that my dad sent to my computer last year ’cause he asked me to take care of his holiday gift-giving and mailing list.

  The line went silent, but I could tell she was still there, ’cause I could hear her breathing. “So tell him that I gotta go make a few phone calls, know what I mean.” The skank wasn’t sure if I was serious or not.

  “Hold on,” she said finally.

  I hung up. I was tired of this game.

  My dad called back two minutes later. I didn’t pick up, I decided that I was unavailable.

  Jalisa called and wanted to stop by, but I told her that I was on my way to D.C. I lied. I didn’t want to be bothered. Before I got dressed I called LaVon again, but he didn’t answer.

  The rest of the day went downhill from there. My mom was packing and I could hear her talking on the phone to my grandmother again. They were arguing as usual.

  I went to bed early.

  I slept mostly, half expecting to be falling again.

  I did.

  CHAPTER 8

  …Go

  “Finding yourself where you don’t want to be is like sitting in hell waiting for a cool breeze to come along. You fight and struggle against status quo, just give it up, relief ain’t coming.”

  —myspace.com

  Thursday was over fast, I don’t even remember it. So then it was Friday. I opened my eyes to wait for my life to get back to where it was. I still said that this has to be a dream. But reality was taking its sweet-ass time to get back around to me. I just lay there thinking.

  My mom had been packing her stuff like crazy since last night and all day yesterday and the day before that.

  It had been two days and I still wasn’t in the mood to do anything. I just hung around all day in my room dealing or rather not dealing, interrupted occasionally by my mom stopping by to check on me and my cell phone going unanswered. The last time, she knocked on my bedroom door, then came in and sat on the bed beside me.

  “Kenisha, this is going to be okay, I promise you.” I just looked at her. She had to kidding. “If you want to talk, I’m here.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, right? We’re out of here. It’s over, the house, the cars, the clothes, the money.”

  “Nothing’s over, we still have everything we need. Having money isn’t having worth. It’ll be good, you’ll see. Your grandmother is really looking forward to seeing you and spending some time with you and Jade’s excited, too. Nothing will really change, you’ll see.”

  “Nothing will really change?” I asked, looking at her like she was nuts. “You mean nothing like my address, my school, my friends, my family, that nothing?”

  “Kenisha, be positive. You
still have your family and friends, and the new school won’t be that bad. This will be a good thing in the long run, you’ll see.”

  “I’ve been going to Hazelhurst Academy since first grade, I know the teachers, and they know me. So when it comes to college letters of recommendation, what am I supposed to do? Those new teachers won’t know me, and what about all my extracurricular activities for the college applications?”

  “Everything will be transferred and college will be fine. You’ll get into the school you want.”

  “How, with what, my college fund?”

  “Your father will take care of that.”

  “Yeah, like he’s taking care of me living here?” I said, questioning her raging assumption that he was gonna actually step up and do anything. But the vindication I hoped to feel fell flat.

  “You have every right to be upset and scared. I am, too. But be positive, everything will work out for the best. Why don’t you give Jalisa and Diamond a call and go to the mall?”

  I shook my head. Her validation didn’t make me feel any better.

  “Okay then, why don’t you come downstairs and get something to eat. You’ll feel better.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said.

  “You’ve barely eaten anything in almost two days. You need to eat something. You can’t starve yourself to death up here.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Okay, you must have questions about all this.”

  “Questions, I was here, remember, I heard the arguments. It’s not like I’m new to this. You and Dad have been fighting full-force since the last day of school. I guess I should have seen this coming.”

  “I know, sweetie, but I just need you to understand I did this for you. I’m trying to do the right thing now to make a better future for you and Jade…”

  “You did what for me, and what does this have to do with Jade?” I asked. “And how can a husband put his wife and daughter out? Isn’t that like against the law or impossible or something? This house is just as much yours as it is his, didn’t your lawyer tell you that? And if you have a prenup, just break it. Everybody knows he’s been doing Courtney for years.”

  “Kenisha,” she said, raising her voice slightly.

  “No, Mom, no, I’m not stupid and I’m not blind. Give me some credit. Teenagers always get a bad rep, but y’all adults do stuff all the time and we’re just supposed to not see it?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated how? Step up to him and get your half.”

  “Kenisha, I wish so much for you and Jade….”

  “Jade again, what is it with Jade? You spend most of your time with Jade.”

  “Jade is—” she said, then paused.

  “I know, she’s your niece and you were close to Aunt Hannah Mae, I get that, but what does she have to do with any of this now?”

  “If I could do it over, I swear I would, but it’s too late and I can’t take any of this back. I messed up and I’m just so sorry.”

  “Mom what are you talking about, messed up what? Did you do something illegal or have an affair or something? Is that why all this is happening?”

  She looked around my bedroom and saw that it was exactly the same except for the boxes and rolls of bubble wrap against the wall. “You need to start packing. The trucks are coming early.” She got up and left and that was it for our talk.

  She didn’t say much to me the rest of the day, she just let me have my space. I guess she could see I needed it or maybe she needed it.

  After that I was mainly just riding low the rest of the day. Chili and Jalisa called a few times, I talked to them once or twice, then just turned my cell off again. I wasn’t in the mood to hear no sad drama about missing me. They stopped by Wednesday and Thursday, but I didn’t want to be bothered, so I told them I was busy doing stuff that I wasn’t. I felt bad but for real, I just didn’t want to be bothered.

  Oh, and LaVon’s tired ass never did show up.

  The next morning, Saturday, three moving vans pulled up in front of my house early, at 6:00 a.m. I was already up. I watched them from the upstairs window. Seven men got out the trucks. The driver from the first truck grabbed a clipboard and walked over and rang the doorbell. My mom answered. They talked a minute while the other six men opened the backs of the trucks and started pulling out big carpet swatches and other stuff, dumping them in the driveway like we was having some kind of weird yard sale.

  There was no way I was going to be sitting there while people I didn’t even know took my life apart piece by piece.

  So I started packing like my life depended on it. I kept packing and packing like crazy. I heard my mom and some man talking outside my bedroom, but I just kept packing. Everything was going in the boxes—books, DVD movies, clothes, shoes, everything. Four hours later, my bedroom was looking like one of those storage bin places on the side of the road. I had my entire life stuffed inside the boxes.

  “Kenisha,” my mom said as she knocked on my bedroom door.

  Everything was scattered all over the place. I was waist-deep in boxes, tape and wrap, sitting on the floor after I had just pulled my thousand or so CDs off the shelf. “Yeah,” I called out to her.

  She opened the door. “They’re ready for your room.”

  I stared at her a minute. I swear I had no idea what she was saying. I saw her lips moving, but that was it. Then this man came to the door behind her and he looked at me and then at my room like he was sizing things up. And I knew right then, I mean, really knew for the first time that this was for real. I was leaving my house for good.

  I grabbed my purse and my cell and I walked out.

  The house was almost empty already. My mom obviously wasn’t playing around, she was seriously taking everything. I swear it looked like she had even scraped the wallpaper off the walls, wow, she even took the lightbulbs out the sockets and the switch plates off the walls. I laughed to myself, my dad’s jaw was gonna drop off when he saw that place.

  I went into her bedroom. It was completely empty, curtains, carpet, doorknobs, everything. The two guest bedrooms were also empty and so were the living room and dining room. There were two guys walking around carrying boxes and two in my dad’s office packing his stuff.

  Then there was a guy in the kitchen and one in the family room. I decided the only place to be was out of there.

  I stood in the empty foyer and called Jalisa, but before I could even say hi, she started in on me.

  “Kenisha, you know I shouldn’t even be speaking to your butt. So what’s up? Where have you been, Chili and I tried calling you. You just like dropped off the radar. Just ’cause you might be moving don’t mean you can’t pick up a phone and call somebody.”

  “You gotta go to work this morning?” I asked, not bothering to respond to her rant.

  “Nah, I don’t go in until late this afternoon. I hate working the afternoon shift. You have no idea how many assholes want to sneak into a stupid movie. It only costs eight bucks, just give up the green and walk in, it’s so stupid,” she added, complaining about her job like she always did.

  “Is your mom home?” I asked her.

  “Nah, she went out shopping with Natalie. Why, what’s up?”

  “I gotta get out of here.”

  “What, you and your mom get into it again?”

  “No, my mom and I are moving out. I told you, we’re gonna live with my grandmother in D.C., we’re moving today,” I said simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “Yeah, right,” she said, obviously discounting what I’d told her. “Are you going to be able to go to dance class next week? I might not.”

  “Jalisa, I’m serious, it’s today, I’m moving today. There are three huge trucks packing our stuff up even as I speak.”

  She went quiet for a second. “I’ll be right over.”

  “No, the guys are here to move my stuff and I don’t want to be here. Can I come over?”

  “Yeah,” she said witho
ut hesitation.

  I stuffed my cell back in my purse and headed out the front door, then turned at the last second to see that my mom was coming downstairs. The man with the clipboard was right behind her. She was pointing across the room and then she glanced over and saw me standing in the doorway. “Kenisha, do you have everything marked for storage and for your grandmother’s house?”

  “Yeah,” I said, then moved aside as two men walked past me carrying boxes. I looked at them and shook my head. “I’m going over to Jalisa’s house.”

  “Don’t be too long, I want to get to your grandmother’s house by noon, and I still have a lot to do today.”

  I nodded numbly, then turned and left. As soon as I stepped outside, two huge gaping holes faced me. One truck was already completely filled. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. So I just walked away.

  When I got to Jalisa’s house, I saw Natalie’s car sitting in the driveway. I started to ring the bell, but the door opened too fast. Jalisa was standing on the other side of the door. The expression on her face said it all. The two of us had been together a long time. This was our first real separation.

  We went inside through the kitchen then out on the deck overlooking the backyard. I leaned on the rail and stared out while Jalisa sat cross-legged on a lounge chair. We were silent for the first few minutes as I guess we tried to figure out what to say.

  “I hate them. I wish they were dead,” I hissed quietly.

  “Kenisha, don’t be saying stuff like that,” Jalisa said quickly.

  “I do, seriously,” I said, “I swear I can’t help it. They piss me off so bad. Why couldn’t he just keep it in his pants and why couldn’t she just deal with it or at least divorce him and keep the house? Why do we have to move? They’re only thinking about themselves. They don’t care about me or what I want.”

  “I thought they might wait until you were in college or something. You know, what’s another year?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “So are you still going to Hazelhurst?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “I doubt it.”

  “That’s messed up.”