by Tracy Brown
“I wanted you to be that someone special in my life no matter what. So when you got physical I overlooked it because I wanted you to be Mr. Right. I wanted to be with you and I wanted you to be Shane’s father figure. I had it all pictured perfectly in my mind.” She shook her head at the absurdity of it now. “When you got shot, I guess I felt like you needed me.” Misa sighed, realizing now that it was her son who had needed her the most then. “I wanted to be there when you woke up so you would see that you hadn’t been alone.”
He smiled slightly. “And your face was the first one I saw when I opened my eyes. You looked shocked as hell!”
Misa smiled, too, remembering how happy she had been when she saw Baron’s beautiful green eyes focusing in on her.
“I was so happy. It was Christmas morning, and I knew that your mother would be so ecstatic when she saw that you were awake.”
Baron knew that it wasn’t his fault what had happened to Shane. But he felt obligated to let Misa know how much he appreciated the fact that she—the unlikeliest of all the people he had been close to in the months before his shooting—had been the one to stand by his side when the chips were down.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the shit I’ve done, you know?”
Misa could see that he was serious. He appeared to be struggling with his emotions as he spoke to her.
“Same here,” she said. “They got me talking to a psychiatrist once a week, so I’m forced to think about it even when I don’t want to.”
He smiled. “Sometimes I think I need a psychiatrist.”
Misa didn’t know what to say.
Baron stared at her for a few minutes and remembered her as merely the sex toy he used to take out and play with at will. The months preceding his accident had been an endless cycle of weed, alcohol, sex, women, and cash—lots of cash he had flushed down the drain. In the midst of all that had come Misa, and he had taken it all out on her—his frustration with Gillian and his father, with Frankie, his financial misfortunes. Poor Misa had borne the weight of Baron’s fury simply because she was there and she kept coming back.
“I know that I have a problem with my temper. I take shit out on people like I did to you, like I did to Angie.” He looked at his hands as if they were foreign objects. “I go too far with shit sometimes. And I don’t know why.” He got quiet again and then looked at Misa, locked eyes with her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For what I did to you and for what I did to everybody else.” He looked so serious.
Misa nodded, but couldn’t help thinking that it sounded as if she was the representative—in Baron’s mind at least—of all the people he had ever done dirty.
She decided not to sugarcoat what she was thinking. Misa cleared her throat and spoke her mind.
“You should be sorry,” she said, her eyes penetrating his. “You’re not the only one who’s been doing a lot of thinking. I have, too. And I know I never should have tried to make you love me. I should never have chased after you the way I did, because it caused me to neglect my son.” Her voice cracked and she took a deep breath. “But instead of appreciating the time I was spending with you, all you did was treat me like shit. And I was dumb enough to think that you could learn to love me. I thought that if I was patient with you, if I kept being there for you when you needed me, and showing you that I was on your side, that you would change.” Misa shook her head in disgust. “I thought that your money, your power, and your status were all the things I needed to make a perfect life for me and Shane. It seemed like all you were missing was a woman in your life to complete you, and I wanted to be that woman. I wanted the money, the status, and the prestige of being Baron Nobles’s wifey. And when you got shot, I thought that if I sat by your side every second you would wake up and realize how much I loved you. And then you would love me, too. I was so stupid.” She looked at Baron again. “I’m so mad at myself for taking time away from my son when he needed me the most. But I’m mad at you, too, Baron. I didn’t deserve what you did to me.”
Baron felt himself getting choked up. He hadn’t expected Misa to be so hard on him. He was already sorry for his poor treatment of her, but hearing her spell it all out for him made him feel even worse.
“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t go back and undo what I did to you. But, Misa, I am sorry. I really am. And I didn’t deserve for you to treat me as well as you did. Covering up the things I did to you so that Frankie wouldn’t find out, sitting by my side at the hospital … I kept you away from your son. I treated you bad. And I probably don’t deserve your forgiveness now. But I’m still asking for it.”
Misa stared back at him. “Is that why you bailed me out? ’Cuz you feel guilty?”
He started to deny it, but decided against it. “That was part of it,” he admitted. “But I also knew that you could use a friend. I owed you that. I couldn’t sit back and watch Frankie keeping you locked up on Rikers Island when I don’t feel like you deserve that.”
Misa held his gaze. “Thank you,” she said.
Baron shrugged his shoulders and gave her a half smile. “You coming here today and giving me a chance to try and get you to forgive me is all the thanks I need.”
Misa felt awkward. She wasn’t sure what to say to fill the void.
Finally, Baron spoke again.
“I know I fucked up. I made some wrong moves. But to be left out in the wind like this…”
Baron stared off into space momentarily. “Everybody except for you and my mother abandoned me.” He seemed to chuckle slightly at the thought of that. “Half the niggas working for Frankie right now are my so-called friends. Gillian is my sister. My own flesh and blood hasn’t called me or come to see me since I got out of the hospital.”
Misa frowned, having always been under the impression that Baron and Gillian were as close as two siblings could get. “Maybe she’s too busy stealing Frankie from my pregnant sister to call you.”
“Camille is pregnant?” Baron couldn’t believe his ears.
Misa nodded, smirking a little. “So she didn’t mention that when she came and told you how broke my sister is, huh?”
Baron had explained to Misa that it had been Gillian’s visit with him in the hospital that had prompted him to send Celia to bail her out of jail. Hearing how alone Camille and Misa were in the world was something Baron was all too familiar with. But Gillian hadn’t mentioned that Camille was pregnant with Frankie’s child.
“Wow. That’s crazy.” He shook his head. “He left her when she needs him the most. I know exactly how Camille feels.”
Misa crossed her legs, decided to do a little prying. “If Gillian and Frankie cut you off altogether, then how do you have the money to stay out here, the money to bail me out and pay a fancy lawyer like Teresa Rourke?”
He smiled then. “My mother,” he said. “She’s the most wonderful mother anybody could ever ask for.” Baron shared with Misa how he had awakened from the coma distraught not only that his father was dead, that he may never walk again, and that he had been shunned by his family, but by the fact that he was now flat broke and without a penny to his name. Every one of his resources had dried up while he lay stricken by Jojo’s bullets.
“I poured my heart out to her when no one was around. I told her how much money I had left—next to nothing. And I thought she was gonna be stressed out over how we were gonna pay the hospital bills and where I was gonna live without money coming in. None of that happened.”
“What did she say?”
“That she had known for years that I wasn’t ready for what my father gave me to handle.” Baron shrugged, still not in complete agreement with Celia on that point. “So she always planned for ‘what if.’ She told me she hoped that it would be more like ‘what if Baron stops being a criminal and wants to go to college?’ But it turned out to be ‘what if Baron gets shot, gets his father killed, and blows damn near all the money?’ ”
“Don’t say it like that. It sounds so—”
�
�True?” he laughed. “Fuck it. It is what it is.”
Misa had never heard Baron sound so defeated.
“Anyway, she had some money put away, some property nobody knew she had. It’s funny ’cuz I doubt that Mayra or Gillian know all of what my father actually gave to my mother when they broke up. It almost seems like he was hiding some of his shit from Mayra by giving it to my moms.”
Misa smiled. “Men can be so deceitful toward their wives,” she said, willing to bet that neither Camille nor Mayra knew the half of what their husbands did behind their backs.
“Well, in my mother’s case, that was a good thing. Thanks to the fact that she was smart with what my father gave her, I’m not worried about nothing.” He looked at Misa sincerely. “And you don’t have to worry about nothing, either.”
She seemed a little surprised.
“You can stay here if you want. You can stay for as long as you want. Nobody has to know,” Baron continued. “My moms got a nurse coming in here around the clock to help me out. But she don’t let them do their job. My mama’s always gonna be the one who takes care of her baby.”
Misa laughed. She knew the feeling. Lily had been hovering over her like an umbrella for weeks.
“So you don’t have to worry about being stuck taking care of me or no shit like that if you decide to stay.”
Misa felt sorry for Baron then. “I wouldn’t feel ‘stuck,’ Baron,” she said. “Don’t say it like that.” She recalled a time when she would have jumped at an invitation to move into Baron’s home, into his life. But now, everything was different. Too much had changed for Misa to even consider his offer. “I’m comfortable staying at my mother’s house,” she said. “But I appreciate the offer. I’m grateful for everything you’ve been doing for me, Baron.”
He shrugged, humbled by his disability. He had always been a loudmouth, a hothead. Not being able to walk and having to be at the mercy of nurses and his mama had taken his ego down several notches. “Well, the bottom line is that I know how you must feel. Everybody’s looking at you like everything is your fault.” He pointed toward himself. “You’re not the only one.”
Misa understood what he meant. She knew that everyone blamed him for Nobles’s murder. Baron was just as much an outcast in his family as she was in hers. She was still quite surprised by how despondent Baron seemed overall. He sounded like he had reached the end of the line.
“I know I’m the one that made Jojo do what he did,” Baron admitted, his voice low and monotone. “I knew that he could come back at me at any minute. But I never thought he would hurt my father.” Baron got emotional and then gathered himself. “He didn’t have nothing to do with it. And I feel just as bad as everybody thinks I should.” He wiped his eyes quickly. “But I feel like Frankie and Gillian forgot the good shit I did for this family. It’s like they forgot who brought us this far over all these years. It was me.” Baron thought back on all the moves he’d made, the connections and money he’d made. “And I know I fucked up this time. But, damn. They just left me out here like an outcast.”
Misa understood how Baron must feel.
“And I want you to know something else,” he said. “I admire you for what you did.”
Misa seemed surprised to hear that.
“I think it took guts to go and face the muthafucka who did that to your kid. A lot of people would have called the cops and let the justice system handle it. But it took a lot of heart for you to go over there and face him by yourself. I think that says a lot about your character.”
“Thank you,” Misa said, genuinely touched.
“You got a lot of heart, Misa. Your son is a lucky little boy to have you for a mother.”
Misa’s eyes watered then. She wasn’t sure that she agreed with Baron’s assessment, but she was praying to have another chance to get it right. She smiled through her tears. “He’s a lot more comfortable with me now. We put together puzzles and color together during our visits.” She seemed to glow just from the thought of it. “And when he has to leave, he gets sad. Each time, I promise him that he’ll see me again soon and he calms down.” She looked at Baron. “I’m so grateful that he still wants to see me.”
He smiled at her.
“I’m gonna give you some money,” he said, very matter-of-factly. Then his face contorted into a frown. “Frankie is playing himself. Camille is pregnant, and he’s so far up Gillian’s ass that he’s not thinking.” He looked at Misa and his expression softened. “I want you and Camille to have whatever you need. You have enough on your mind to not have to worry about money. I’m gonna give you something to hold you over for a little while. And when you need more, I want you to come back to me without hesitation.”
“Wow,” Misa said. “Thank you, Baron.”
Misa felt conflicted. She agreed that Frankie was wrong, but she felt bad accepting legal help, bail money, and now financial assistance for her destitute sister from Baron. She hated feeling like a charity case and was sure that Baron was doing all of this in an effort to ease his guilt over a bevy of other things. She wished there was a way for her to show her appreciation. She thought of something that she had been meaning to tell him about ever since it happened.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “The night I was arrested, they brought me into this room where they had all these pictures of fugitives and victims of crimes and all kinds of shit. Anyway, your friend Danno was in one of those pictures.”
Baron froze. “Danno?”
Misa nodded. “Yeah. The poster said something about he was wanted for the rape, torture, and murder of somebody named Trina … um … Trina Samuels.”
Baron kept his game face on, but his ears were ringing, his head began to throb.
“It said that they found his DNA at the scene and—”
“You’re sure it was Danno?”
“Yeah.” Misa nodded. “They had his picture. Hers, too. She was a pretty girl.” She saw Baron shift uncomfortably in his seat. “Have you seen him?”
Baron looked at her. “No,” he said. “Did you tell them that you knew who he was?”
“Hell no!” Misa snapped. “I’m not crazy. I told them that I didn’t recognize anybody on that wall.”
“Did they believe you?” Baron was wondering how close he was to having the walls close in around him.
“I think so. They didn’t press me about it. They just sent me to my cell and that was the end of that.”
He nodded. “Thanks for letting me know,” he said. He began thinking of how he would handle this now. Danno was on the police’s radar in connection with a murder Baron had committed. Sure, Danno and his two nephews had been the ones to rape and torture Trina. But Baron had pulled the trigger and killed the girl. Now he had to decide how to handle the situation in order to save his own ass.
Just outside the room, Celia listened to their conversation. Having just returned from her lunch with Camille, she had come home and heard the two of them talking in the living room. She had heard Baron admit to having hit Misa, had heard him acknowledge that he hadn’t been good to Misa. Celia had often wondered whether her son had laid his hands on his ex, Angie, and hearing Misa confirm her worst fears, Celia let out a sigh. Baron also seemed pretty interested in the murder of this Trina girl.
Celia walked upstairs to her bedroom, making a mental note to have a long talk with her son the next chance she got.
Red-Handed
February 2008
Gillian stood at her father’s gravesite, fighting back tears. She missed him with all of her heart. She had always been the apple of her father’s eye. No matter what she did, whether it was making some toast for breakfast or winning a golf tournament, Doug thought it was the most amazing accomplishment and would always tell her how proud he was of her.
The winter air was breezy and the cloudy sky only made her dark mood worse. She felt so alone. Frankie was preoccupied with the drama unfolding in his family. And she was still too angry with Baron to forgive him for their father’s
death. Her mother wasn’t grieving the way that she was. In fact, Gillian was beginning to wonder if Mayra had ever loved her father at all.
She had hoped that settling the score with Jojo would make her feel better. She had been waiting for some sense of closure to come over her. But it never came.
Gillian’s tears fell slowly and she bent down to touch her father’s tombstone. “I miss you,” she said softly. “I feel so alone.”
She closed her eyes and felt the wind wrap itself around her body and imagined that it was her father hugging her tightly, reassuring her that everything was going to be all right and that he was still there with her. The thought made her smile and she opened her eyes and peered up at the cloudy sky.
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said. “I needed that.”
* * *
Camille had only returned to her Staten Island home to retrieve her mail and to gather some more of her belongings. She had finally accepted that this house she loved so much was no longer the haven it had once been for her. Reporters were fewer now, but still present. Her neighbors still stared at her and offered to lend a listening ear if she needed to talk just so that they could get into her business. She had put her beloved house on the market. She would miss the luxurious estate, but was eager to move on to a new chapter in the lives of her and her unborn child. These days she was staying with her mother out on Long Island. It allowed her to achieve some sense of normalcy in her otherwise chaotic life.
In her bedroom, she packed some of her underwear and sweaters, her important papers and her pictures. She zipped the duffel bag and was descending the stairs to the living room when the doorbell rang. Camille sighed, assuming that it was one of her “concerned” neighbors. She glanced through the peephole and was surprised to see the cop who had escorted her out of Gillian’s house a few weeks ago. He wasn’t in uniform, but she recognized him nonetheless.
Camille opened the door and he smiled at her, said hello.
