Tyger blew the surprise with the excited look on her face. Temper didn’t hesitate to snatch the keys out of her hand nor to run to the door. The bow wrapped around the luxury four-door beauty in silver made Temper fall to her knees in a happy cry.
“Happy birthday,” Isabel, Tyger, and Shelia screamed as they jumped for joy at Temper’s response.
She cried until there weren’t any tears left in her ducts and hit the unlock on the doors. She sat in the sedan’s driver seat, adjusted the mirror, and then said, “Thanks, Isabel, it’s the exact one I wanted.”
“Then you should thank Tyger for hunting it down for me and then thank her again and Shelia for helping me pay for it. We didn’t want you to be stuck with a note. Oh, and there’s a few bags in the trunk for you, too. Don’t stay out here long. There’s a party going on in here for you.”
“I won’t.”
“Yes, you will,” Tyger whispered when the women were out of earshot. “You have to drive it around the block at least. I don’t know anyone whose first car was a big-body Benz.” She nodded at her own car. “I had to settle for a two-door Benz with the top missing.” She giggled as she got in on the passenger side.
“You don’t look anything like I remember. It’s like I knew another person,” Temper noted, finally getting a good look at her best friend.
“We both are other people. Don’t you let anyone tell you differently, and you don’t look the way I remember you either. You have meat on your bones, and you look a hundred percent Asian besides that butt you’re growing and that desert suntan you got. I thought Asians couldn’t hold on to weight.”
“Whatever. This Asian got ass, but I won’t lie, it’s a benefit not looking black. No offense to your extra chocolaty ass, but people treat you differently when they don’t see the black. It’s not until I open my mouth that they know what time it is. I can’t change my voice tone, and I wouldn’t want to if I could.” She smacked her lips and then pinched Tyger’s hips, which looked like they’d tear through her jeans. “Look at all of this. Ass, ass, ass. Yo’ ass looks like the end of a damn horse. You’ve been doing a lot of fucking it seems, Miss Lesbian.”
“Study, fuck, eat, class, and then repeat, and this is donkey fat,” she said, slapping her ass, making sure it sounded painful in a freaky way. “And I thought I told you I had a lesbian experience. Keep fucking with me about it, and I’m going to give you one. Them little bitty titties are sitting up nice,” she joked as she reached for a nipple.
“Fuck you!”
“When? We can hop in the back seat now and break this bitch in,” Tyger teased.
“You know I love you, right?”
“Um, I was just playing with you. We both know you can’t handle this tongue. Take me back to the center, you freaky Asian bitch. I haven’t even breathed on the cat yet, and you’re confessing feelings.”
“Stop playing, Tyger. I’m trying to be serious. Your being here means everything to me, and so does our friendship,” Temper confessed. “Thank you for making my day special, boo.”
“You’re welcome, my love-face. There’s no place in the world I’d rather be, besides at home alone studying.”
“Ugh. I hate you because I know you mean that shit.”
“Yes, I do, as I sip on a flavored coffee in my panties.”
“Sorry, boo, I’m not going to let that fucked-up statement kill my joy. It’s my twenty-first birthday, and I’m spending it with the two people I love most in this world.”
“Man, fuck that bitch!”
“What? Why did you say that?” Temper asked, confused. She thought for sure whatever problem Tyger had with Isabel had to be squashed after the communication it took to come together for her.
“Because he is a bitch! Did you think I’d let you spend your day with Kevin’s weak ass?”
“I was talking about you and Isabel.”
“Oh, I thought you were talking about Kevin’s raggedy ass,” she lied.
Spending time with Isabel was for Temper. She still didn’t like nor trust her. By the questions Isabel asked over lunch, Tyger knew she’d done her homework on her and her family. She expected that from a cop, but to have someone follow her was crossing the line. Whoever the big, dark blob she’d hired was, hiding behind the tinted windows of his Grand Marquis, he was doing a terrible job. Tyger had clocked him when she pulled into her hotel room the night before, and he’d passed her and Temper twice since they’d been in the car. She wanted to tell Temper what her so-called sister had done, which would have wasted time she’d never get back. Either Temper would piss her off by taking Isabel’s side, or she’d assume her past was still haunting her. Tyger chose to be the bigger person, but only for Temper’s sake.
“Look, no more trying to make memories with jackasses. How about that? We’ll throw the entire birthday away before we spend one with a nigga who ain’t our husband or we don’t know for sure we’d marry. That way, if we run across dick while we’re celebrating, we get to have celebration dick with our cake.”
“Sounds good to me.” Temper giggled. “Let me get us back before Isabel panics.”
The girls made it back, but Isabel wasn’t there.
“You know she can never stay still long. She got a call and changed clothes like Superman in a telephone booth,” Shelia grunted to voice her disappointment. “She didn’t want to go, but you know how that goes.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, Temper, you still got us, and Tyger is welcome to stay your whole shift. Just brief her on what to do if we get a 911 incident. I don’t want her scared to come back.” She laughed, cut herself another slice of cake, and went to the front of the building to check on their guests. The runaway shelter also functioned as a “soda pad home,” which was an in-between spot for kids waiting for foster care or a group home setting. The doors never closed, and there was never a day when they didn’t get someone new.
“Help me clean up, and then I’ll take you to my office,” Temper said with a smile that didn’t go unnoticed.
“Aw, shit, Temper has her own office. How you pull that off with your six-year-high-school-diploma-holding ass?” Tyger jokingly asked as she wrapped everything up on the table in the cloth and threw it away.
“Please give me all my props. I have a six-year high school degree and my GED. There ain’t too many people who can say that shit.”
“Right, people who graduated within the four years allotted say ‘isn’t,’ not ‘ain’t.’ I see grammar wasn’t a major part of the required credits.”
“Everybody can’t be a hood genius like you.” She rolled her eyes at Tyger.
“Well, technically,” Tyger articulated in that irritating genius voice that Temper was first introduced to her using, “unless there’s a disability present, anyone can be taught what I know. Most don’t have the discipline to retain the information nor to use it. That’s the real issue.”
“Please discipline your mouth to shut the fuck up.” She giggled and then looked around to see if anything else needed cleaning. With Tyger knocking out the cleanup in one quick move, Temper said, “Come on, my office is up front.”
The girls chatted about everything they talked about over the years by phone but with the facial expressions as Temper did the live-ins’ daily logs. Tyger took that as an opportunity to study, and just when it felt like they were making progress in their projects, everything stopped. Chaos skipped through the building with glee, looking for its old friend, and when it found her at the highest point of her new life, it did what it did best. It tossed Temper’s life.
“This must be one of those 911 situations Shelia was talking about,” Tyger said. She saw all the cops fall in before Temper did.
“Yeah, it looks like it. You stay here, and please don’t come out. Since they’re minors, we have to protect their privacy.”
“Bitch, I’m only nosy when I know the folks involved. Go do you and close the door behind you. I’m studying.”
Temper took a
couple of steps toward the forming crowd and froze once she realized everyone’s eyes were looking in her direction with grief etched on their faces. That dread Temper felt the first time her probation officer picked her up in the clothes she was arrested in was back. As it embraced her, she couldn’t take another step, nor could she breathe. It was the same tragic death scene from the hood movies she grew up watching where the dead were announced, there was a high-pitched, heartbroken scream, and then that heartbroken person yelled, “No!” in disbelief. Yet this time it had a fucked-up twist.
“Hey, Temper, can you please come here for a minute? There’s something we need tell you,” announced the taller of the two officers who Temper quickly identified as Isabel’s partners.
“If it ain’t ‘happy birthday’ or Isabel sent the two of you to tell me something for her, then no, I can’t come here.” Her words were shaky as the chill in the room entered her lungs.
“Oh, Lord,” Shelia whimpered as she dreaded the inevitable.
“Oh, Lord, what, Shelia? If you know what these pigs want with me, then you tell me.”
“Temper, now you know better than that,” Shelia snapped while the tears she was holding back surfaced and covered her cheeks.
“No, Shelia, I don’t.”
Tears mounted in the wells of Temper’s eyes. The progress she’d made under Isabel’s love and care felt like it was a sentence away from washing away with her tears.
“Isabel was killed in the line of duty. I’m so sorry, Temper.”
Temper didn’t know which officer gave her the news, but whoever it was should have been arrested for murder. His words had killed her too.
“No!” she yelled repeatedly before falling to her knees drained of life. Hope for all that could be good and just ran over her eyelids and met her lips with a salty aftertaste.
Motion pictures didn’t capture devastation accurately. Temper needed someone to get with the writers and coerce them into rewriting this movie. Instead of the officers announcing the murder of a well-loved civilian, they were there to comfort Temper. The same two officers she met that night at the Greyhound station with Isabel were the ones with their arms open, ready to place them around her and comfort her through the horrible news. The sick irony was too much for her to take or deem as real. Temper’s beloved Isabel was dead on her twenty-first birthday. The murderer had rewritten more than a hood movie’s script. The killer rewrote Temper’s life.
Chapter Eight
The Southern California Natural History Museum’s tour schedule had no vacant spots available for the next six months, and that’s how Paula, the director, had to have it. She wasn’t sure about hiring such a young girl for the curator position, but Tyger’s resume was impeccable. She’d graduated high school at the age of 16, earned bachelor’s degrees in anthropology and history before her twentieth birthday, and began volunteering at the museum. At the same time, Tyger pursued a Master of Liberal Arts in museum studies with ancient African artifacts as her specialized area of study ten minutes away at USC.
Not long after, Tyger wrote her dissertation for her PhD in anthropology. She was even cocky enough to base her thesis on a theory she created as the discussion topic for two of her four published books. There was no way Paula could pass her up. When the board of trustees, known as the “money people,” politely told her they weren’t comfortable giving a black girl that much power, Paula didn’t have a problem reminding them how much money they could bring in from making Tyger the face with those accolades. Once she painted the picture for the board, calls were made. Within days, the museum received a large donation from a black-operated, but not black-owned, television network. They also began running commercials to get donors and the African American community to support the museum. To top it off, Tyger hired a drop-dead gorgeous Asian and black woman to fill the docent position, which made the $18 an hour they paid her a steal with all the traffic Temper’s beauty brought in.
“The exhibit designers outdid themselves with the Escape to the Safari display. It’s created a huge buzz, and the board upped the in-house budget. So you know what that means?” Paula said with her eyes shooting from Temper to Tyger.
“Yeah, it means you can finally hire me a boss and give yourself and Tyger a break from doing it,” Temper responded.
“Or I can promote you to the museum educator position, on the grounds you remain the docent, and pay you more to be your own boss. I believe you can handle it. What do you think, Tyger? Can Temper handle it?”
“I know she can handle it. For a girl who graduated high school six years after starting, Temper knows her stuff.” She giggled. “It’s like she was born to work here. I’ve been on a lot of museum tours, but I’ve never enjoyed one as much as I enjoy Temper’s. You got it going on, girlfriend.”
“Whatever. Don’t forget, I also hold a GED, thank you very much. I had to perfect my exit from high school. That’s what took me so long to complete it. If you’re going to tell history, make sure you check the facts. But then again, I guess that’s why I’m the best docent in the western hemisphere and you’re not,” Temper teased.
“So do you want the position or not, Ms. High School Degree Holder?” asked Paula.
“How much is the pay increase? Managing me is going to be hard work. That’s a lot of talent to handle. I’d need to see at least two dollars more an hour.”
Tyger was already shaking her head in disappointment. No matter how many years Temper had been around her, she still didn’t see it. It was hard to watch Temper finding value in everything around her except herself, but she knew why. Temper had never fully forgiven herself for her past mistakes, whether she talked about the past or not. She added blaming herself for Isabel’s death to her self-hate list, and though she never admitted it, she thought of herself as a burden who Tyger pitied.
“How about going from twenty-eight thousand a year hoping that you get thirty-hour workweeks to a mandatory forty hours a week at fifty-five thousand a year?”
“Um,” Temper hummed, taken aback.
“Okay, you’re right. Two jobs deserve more pay. Sixty thousand a year and a possible performance increase after two years. That’s the best I can do. What do you say?” Paula begged, clearly taking Temper’s shock for disappointment.
“Two questions—where do I sign, and when can I start?”
“It’s effective immediately, and there’s nothing for you to sign. I’ve had the approval to promote you for a month but wanted to monitor your performance myself. Not that I don’t trust Tyger’s words. It’s the bias of them that makes me curious. The two of you are best friends and have an unbreakable sisterhood, but your work ethic put my doubts to rest. Congratulations!”
“Thank you kindly,” Temper said, then gave a curtsy in her slacks.
“Hold on. Before you get ready to celebrate, I have good news to share too,” Tyger announced. “I spoke with my academic counselor about a few concerns I was having, and he took those concerns to the board of directors of anthropology. Not only am I up for an honorary doctorate for the anthropology work I did last year in Africa, but they also found a way to accredit it as well.”
“So what does all of that mean?” Temper asked, cutting her off. “Don’t look at me like that. You know I hate suspense.”
“You can kill a punchline in a wet dream starring Idris and Denzel with your short attention span,” Tyger snarled, rolling her eyes. “All of that means I finished my dissertation last month.” Her attitude began melting away, and her words were choppy as tears materialized. Tyger didn’t have to say another word as the ladies added their tears to her joyous, silent cry.
* * *
“A fucking doctor. Crazy-ass Washington is about to cross the stage at USC to get her doctorate. Bitch, I was happy for you when you got your master’s, but, ho, I’m proud this go-round,” Temper rejoiced as they walked into their shared apartment in Venice.
Seeing that partying was no longer warranted in the days after Isabel’s mu
rder, Temper had used the three days she had left with Tyger to pack up her belongings and hit the road back to California with her. There was no way she would continue living in that house. Isabel’s mother and father assured her she could stay, and that’s what their daughter would have wanted, but she wasn’t for pleasing the wants of the dead. She was in California with her driver’s license updated to her new address before the funeral and was too hurt to drive back to attend. She was running again. However, this time she had a plan. She’d bust her ass and be the best at whatever she decided to do and prove to the curse that had been following her her entire life that she’d make it.
Temper loved her decision to move in with Tyger. It helped her get over Isabel’s death. Tyger kept their schedules too busy to grieve, and then six months later, time froze.
“This letter came for you today. I held it to the lamp but still couldn’t read shit. Hurry up and open it. It’s from a lawyer in Laughlin, Nevada.” Tyger handed her the letter and stood over her shoulder. They must have read it at the same pace, because when Temper made it to the closing, Tyger shouted, “Ain’t that a bitch?”
Isabel named her the beneficiary of her estate with one catch: Temper wouldn’t receive a dime of it until she was six months into her thirty-fifth year of life, or earlier if she were married with a child. Isabel wanted to make sure she was mature enough to handle the blessing her death would bestow on her.
“I don’t want her estate.” She was about to rip the letter into pieces, but Tyger snatched it in time.
“What the fuck? Are you crazy or utterly stupid? If you don’t accept it, everything your mom, big sister, and friend worked for goes to the State. The same State that didn’t find her damn killer.”
“I don’t care. The shit doesn’t feel right. I want Isabel, not her damn money. As of today, I don’t need money from nobody.”
Finally, the hurt broke through the blocks of ice that Temper had placed around her heart, and she cried. There was no room left inside of her to store the pain. Beyond that, there wasn’t any room left to hide her fear of going back in time to become that same clueless little girl Isabel help her erase. It eased her past fears knowing Isabel would be there to stop the old her from coming back. Tyger’s friendship helped. However, at that time, they were in separate states. It was Isabel who had functioned as her personal security. Taking the money didn’t bring her back, and that was what she wanted—her Isabel back. She cried until her sorrow attacked Tyger, and then they cried together.
Carl Weber's Kingpins Page 13
