by Ni-Ni Simone
I felt like she’d taken a knife and sliced me down the center of my chest.
I did my best to calm down but if I didn’t get my pills back I was seconds away from having a psychotic fit! “Give it here, Camille!”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she finished off her drink and then turned to walk away.
I followed her. She marched into her bedroom and attempted to slam the door in my face. I kicked it open and the door handle crashed into the wall behind it. “Give me my medication, Camille!”
“Medication?” She spun around and arched her brow. “Since when have you been on medication, Heather? The last I checked you didn’t need any medication and as many times as I’ve tried to have you committed, I know firsthand that there are no pills for teenagers who treat their mothers like crap!”
“Mother? Is that some kind of sick joke? After what flop of a movie did you figure out that you were a mother? Or are you trying to make comedy a part of your comeback? If so, then get ready for failure number two. Now give me my things!”
Camille screamed, “I swear you’re just like—”
“Like who?!” I screamed back at her. “Like my father? Oh no that couldn’t be it, because you have no idea who my father is!” I walked over to Camille’s vanity and started picking up pictures of her in different poses with different celebrities—mostly men. I screamed, “I’m just like my father? Well, who is he?!” I tossed a picture at her. “Is he Morgan Freeman?” I tossed another picture. “Is he Denzel Washington? Come on, Camille, tell me something!”
“Heather, put those pictures down!” She attempted to grab the pictures from my hand. I yanked my arm away, causing Camille to stumble backward.
“No!” I screamed. “Is he Will Smith? Idris Elba, or did you get really down and dirty with it and give up the golden goods to the mailman, the cable man, or the gardener? Huh? Or were you too drunk to even know! You’re so evil! So nasty! You don’t even know who my daddy is. You probably slept with every last one of them! Now who is he, Camille! Who is he!” I knocked the remaining pictures off of her vanity in one sweep. The glass from the pictures’ frames shattered as they hit the floor.
“I said who is he!”
“He’s Richard—” She stopped herself midsentence and covered her mouth abruptly.
I ran over to her and tried to snatch her hand away from her mouth. “Say it, Dammit! Tell me!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. We wrestled across the bed and fell to the floor. I wanted to stomp the truth out of her. For years I have wanted to know who my father is and she stopped midsentence, taunting me with a piece of my truth.
“You owe me this!” I spat. “Say his name! I’m tired of not knowing! I need to know!”
She overpowered me and pushed me off of her. “Heather, are you crazy? What do you want to know for? He doesn’t want you!”
“Does he even know I exist?!”
“Yes he knows! He’s known from day one and he’s never wanted anything to do with you! He already has a daughter! I was supposed to abort you but when I got there it was too damn late!”
“So I was a mistake?” I asked, my legs feeling as if they were about to buckle and fold beneath me.
“Yeah, yeah, his! Now get the hell out of my face!” she spat.
I headed toward her. I was determined to kill her. I saw no reason why she should continue to live. She looked at me and laughed. “Do it. And I will call Officer Sampson.”
I gasped and stopped in my tracks.
She gave a crooked smile. “You didn’t forget that you had a probation officer, now did you? Should I call him and suggest that he give my junkie who tried to kill me, who held me at knifepoint—would you like me to add that—a drug test? Because you know I will. I’m looking for a reason to act. To tear your career down and let you know how it feels. ’Cause you have gotten a little bit too big and I’m just the person to bring you down, my dear. Now retreat to your corner, behave, go fix me a drink and act as if you have some manners.”
Instantly fire raced through my body. I couldn’t think and that’s when it hit me. “Is that what you want?” I asked. “Because I will grant your wish!”
She straightened her nightgown and said, “Yes, dear, on the rocks.”
“No problem.”
I raced over to her bed, reached for the secret stash she kept under it, ran over to her bedroom window and sailed all five bottles of Scotch into the L.A. skyline. “If you want a drink go get it!”
“HEATHER!!!”
I twirled around. “I’m sooooo sick of you! Really, did you really think I would keep letting you do whatever you wanted to do to me! Huh, Camille?!”
I brushed past her, ran down the stairs, and into the great room. I made a left toward the bar and grabbed all of the bottles that I could. “You want a drink?!”
“Put them down!” she screamed.
“Then here you go!” I spat and my voice cracked from yelling at the top of my lungs. I picked up three bottles and hurled them toward Camille. She ducked and they smashed and shattered into the wall, leaving her dirty secrets running down to the floor.
“You’re a drunk! A Hollywood nobody! Norma Marie!” I raced toward the terrace—which was open to the great room. Camille grabbed my arm, and caused me to drop two of the bottles to the floor. They crashed into a zillion pieces and the liquor quickly streamed through the grooves of the terra-cotta tiles.
“Get off of me!” I snatched my arm away, sailing the bottles I held in my hand over the terrace’s iron black railing and into the driveway. I dusted my hands and rushed back into the house.
“Stop it now, Heather! Show some respect!”
I growled at her, “You need to can the jokes! Respect? If anything you need to show me respect and watch how you speak to me, Norma Marie. I’m not the one you want to play with. I know all of your secrets before and after you changed your name to Camille!”
“How dare you!” She cornered me as I raced back to the bar. Seeing no way out, I took my arm and swept everything off the bar with my elbow. Camille lifted her hand in the air and I said, “You got away with hitting me this morning, but if you do it again I will be leaving here in handcuffs.”
“You certainly will!” She sneered at me, her hand still in mid-air.
I huffed, unsure of whether I could completely take Camille, but certain that if she put her hands on me I would try. “Is that what you really want to do, Camille? Send me to jail? Have you forgotten that I’m the one paying these bills? You don’t have any money. None. You don’t contribute one dime to this eight-thousand-dollar- a-month rent! Not one dime to paying the driver, the maid, or anyone else around here! If it wasn’t for an anonymous donor there’d be no way I could even afford to attend Hollywood High!”
“Shut. Up!”
“No. You. Shut. Up! You’ve never even asked how we’re maintaining around here! Do you even care that the well is running dry? How much money do you think I make? We have lost our house and now we have an eight-thousand-dollar-a-month rent! I’m paying all the utilities, buying all the liquor you drink and you won’t even tell me who my father is!”
“I will not stand for you speaking to me like that!” Camille said, reaching for the phone, which I quickly snatched out of the wall.
“I pay that bill, too!” I spat. Before I could say anything the doorbell rang and a tiny voice called my name. “Heeeeeaaaather! Are you in there?”
Ding Dong!
Camille and I were silent as the bell rang again.
Camille sucked in a deep breath and backed away. “You heard what I said. No pills. No drugs. No crap. And no more talk about your damn daddy who doesn’t want you anyway. I don’t need the stress. I’m trying to make a comeback! And before I have you around here high as hell and making me look bad, I’ll have you on a plane to rehab so fast you won’t have time to even think about your next hit!”
Ding Dong! “Heeeeeeather!” whoever rang the bell called my name again. “I hear voices, are you
in there?”
Camille continued, “So you better get yourself together and gather yourself real quick!” She turned away from me and slid her matted slippers toward the window and peeped out. “What is that snotty little trick Spencer doing here?!”
“Spencer?” I said. What is she doing here . . .? And how much of this did she hear... ?
Camille grimaced at me. “I’ll call the maid to come from the pool house and clean this mess up! You get the door and ensure that Kitty Ellington’s little thugette isn’t here long!”
8
Spencer
I stood at the front door of Heather and her mother’s million-dollar Penny Lane Bungalow, clicking my heels in disbelief as I discreetly pulled out my cell and recorded the nasty argument between the two of them.
Sweetjigglebootypop! I can’t believe that they’re renting. Renting? How tragic! How will I ever look Heather in her eyes again, knowing she’s broke, busted, and can’t be trusted? Rich was right. They really are in the projects. Oh, this is scandalous!
I blinked. A part of me almost felt bad. First I had to mace her. And now I found out that, on top of it all, her mother’s a fraudulent barnyard mess. Poor thing! I turned from the door and thought about leaving until I heard Heather’s mother say to her, “You get the door and ensure that little thugette isn’t here long!” My mouth dropped open. Who in the world is she talking about? With a name like Norma Marie, I know that drunk isn’t talking about me.
I quickly shut my phone off and shoved it back down in my bag as Heather came to the door scowling at me. I couldn’t see her eyes because they were hidden behind her sunglasses. “Spencer, what do you want? I’m really not in the mood for your theatrics right now. I don’t appreciate that stunt you pulled this morning, macing me in my damn face.”
I giggled, tilting my head and touching one of my diamond earrings. “Theatrics? Heather, you’re so dang silly. I’m not an actress. Actresses can’t even keep jobs. I came here—”
She folded her arms across her chest, narrowing her eyes. “For what? To make sure you didn’t blind me?” She tossed her sunglasses off and her eyes were red and practically swollen shut. “Well, as you can see, you didn’t blind me. Now leave.”
“Heather, I’m not leaving. I have been nothing but a friend to you.”
“I cannot believe this,” she chuckled in disbelief. “You think you’ve been a friend to me? Oh, this is priceless! Is that how you define a friend—by spraying Mace in their face?”
“Well I had to get your attention and let you know that you can’t go around giving out your mother’s cheap perfumes to people.”
“So you couldn’t talk to me about it, instead? You had to run down on me and steal on me? Really? Is that how you greasy skanks up on the hill do it?”
I rolled my eyes, putting a hand up on my hip. The nerve of her! “Well, at least I came down the hill. I asked Rich to come with me but she said she doesn’t do the hood. But that’s not the point.”
“Well how about you get to the point because you’re wasting my time. And the sight of you is really making me sick.”
I swept a curl from my face. “Ohmygod, Heather. That’s not nice. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was to be told your mother’s perfume smelled like cat piss on me? Then have to walk around the school with my neck wrapped in gauze? Do you know how hard it is to bling out a bandage? Today’s been hell, Heather.”
“You know what, Spencer? Screw you, your blinged out bandage, and my mother’s perfume!”
“No, screw you, little Miss Pissy-face. You got the wrong toolbox, boo. I don’t get screwed. And you can go to hell in a gasoline-covered handbasket for saying that to me. I have blisters on my neck because of you, girlie. So if anything you owe me an apology. And you should be thanking me.”
“Oh, dear God!” she snorted, shaking her head. “Thanking you?! For what?”
I frowned, pulling my shades up over my head and looking her in her puffy eyes. “For not suing you or your mother, that’s for what. But you know what? It’s not even that serious now. I came here to be the bigger person to forgive you for what you did to me.”
“For what I did to you? Are you serious? You are really delusional. You have the audacity to dart your dizzy behind over here with this dumbness, talking about you forgive me! And that I owe you an apology? Oh, no. You are really tripping on stupid.”
My eyes flicked for a few seconds, trying to figure out if she was trying to imply I wasn’t the brightest shade of lipstick in the make-up caddy. But I let it go. She couldn’t possibly be insinuating that. “Heather, I don’t want to fight with you. So let’s not turn this into a snotty cat-box fight.”
“Tramp, you turned this into a fight the minute you jumped up and attacked me. And now you want to forgive me. You disgraced me. You told my business. I did nothing to you.”
I flipped my hair. “Girl, are you crazy? What business of yours did I tell?”
“Trick, you practically told the whole school that I had no ass.”
“Ohsweetbutteredbiscuits, now you’re going too far, Heather. I did not. I said you wore booty bags. Get it right.”
She huffed. “Same difference. You ruined me! You put me on blast in front of the whole damn school. No, matter of fact ... the entire world! Yelling out that I wore booty bags! If I choose to pad my behind, that’s nobody’s business but mine. You’re two-faced! And you wanna come over here and talk about forgiveness. Oh, you’re dumber than I thought.”
I took another deep breath. The balls of my feet were starting to burn from standing out in this horrid heat in these heels. I glanced around her yard, looking for a spot of shade. But the only thing I noticed was that there was glass everywhere and that the grass needed to be cut. My God, they can’t even afford trash pickup or lawn service! This is sinful! I turned my attention back to her, giving her a saddened look. There was no way I could stay mad at her with all of this suffering going on around her. I reached out for her hand. “Heather, I really forgive you.”
She snatched her hand back. “For what? For that video of you spraying a whole can of Mace in my face going viral? Is that what you’re here to forgive me for? Oh, oh, wait. I have some forgiveness for you. How about you forgive me for having to pay all the bills around here. And for having to spend almost four hours in the damn emergency room getting my eyes flushed out because you wanted to go psycho on me. Yeah, forgive me for that. Because I can clearly see here that you are clueless. Oh, and better yet. Forgive me for having to be friends with a bunch of nasty, conniving, hobags, including you, who don’t even like me. . . .”
Tears started welling up in her eyes.
“Heather—”
“You’re not the one who everyone has their hands out to, looking for handouts, shaking tin cups up in your face expecting you to rescue them from their miserable little lives. Well what about my misery? No one cares about that. So don’t talk to me about forgiveness. You’re not the one who has to live trapped in a box. I’m sick of it! And I’m sick of people like you! And I’m sick of trying to be everything everybody else wants me to be, except for me. I thought you were different, Spencer. I thought I could kick it with you. I thought you liked me. Not Wu-Wu. But me ... Heather! You knew that one thing about me. And today you yelled it out in front of everyone. Do you know how mortifying that was? Do you have any idea how badly you hurt me?”
I gave her a blank stare. I couldn’t believe she was going off on me like that. Like really. Hearing all those nasty things she was saying made me feel like she had just sideswiped me, and knocked me over like I was a mannequin dressed in a cheap polyester suit and bargain basement jewels. I was the victim here! Not her. I was the one with the blisters on my neck wearing a god-awful bandage that I had to turn around and hot glue loose gems on just to make it stylish. Clearly, she was confused. But since I had gone over there to forgive her, I had to pick myself up because I didn’t have on polyester and my jewels were anything but cheap.
“No, of course you don’t,” she continued, eyeing me, “because—unlike me—you have the whole world at your fingertips. Everything you want is handed to you. And I have to practically beg, borrow, and pretend to be something I don’t wanna be just to have a little bit of what you have. So you want forgiveness. Then, forgive me. Exonerate me, please. Yes, free me. Do me that honor, Your Majesty. And since you’re gracious enough to come down the hill and into the hood to hand out forgiveness, I have one more thing to add to the list. Forgive me for tossing you off my property!”
Whaaaaaat?! Oh, she really tried to push her go-kart into my last nerve telling me to get off property she doesn’t even own! I took another deep breath. I really didn’t want to have to mace her again. But she was acting like a wild dog and I had a full can on ready if she didn’t pump her brakes real quick.
She bit into her bottom lip and stared at me. Her eyeballs looked like little red balls wrapped in puff pastry. That’s how swollen and red they were. We both just stood there under the blazing sun, looking at each other. Her lips quivered. Her eyes watered. I had really hurt her. Now I did feel bad. So I did what they always do on my mother’s TV show when someone was about to start crying. I stepped up in her space and hugged her.
And then, on cue as if we were going on commercial break, I cried with her. Heather clutched me tightly. And right at that moment, I felt as if I could win a Daytime Emmy.
“It’s all right Heather. It’s going to be okay. It could have been worse, you know. I could have clawed your eyeballs out and stomped you with my seven-inch heels, but I didn’t do that. I was reasonable.”
“No. What you were was mean! How could you do that to me, Spencer? You’re not the one shamed! You’re not the one floating around the Internet looking like a fool! You could have talked to me.”
I stepped back, touching the side of her face. “I’m sorry but my neck was on fire, and I needed you to feel what I was feeling. You didn’t talk to me before you gave out your mother’s perfume to tell me that it might break my neck out. So why would I want to talk to you?”
