by Lexie Ray
And at least I had it, I told myself. At least I was going to go out better than Jazz went out, bloody and with only the uniform on her back after the beating she took. I would have clothes and money. It would be morning. I hadn’t nearly died.
It was going to be okay, I told myself, because it had to be.
Before I started packing, I took out the letter that Jazz had sent to me just a few short months ago. I kept it tucked away in my dresser drawer. It had come as a surprise, bundled into other letters. I hadn’t heard anything from her after she had fled, assuming the worst. But the letter gave me hope — hope that if Jazz could make it, I could, too.
"Dear Cocoa," it read. "I want to start off by saying how sorry I was to leave the nightclub the way I did. Tracy messed me up so bad, and I was sure my only option was to escape. It wasn't fair for me to leave without saying goodbye or thank you for all that you did for me at the nightclub.
"I know that you had my best interests in mind and were always looking out for me. You're a real friend. The truth is that I was never cut out for the life that you're leading. I just wasn't going to survive.
"Well, as this letter proves, I am surviving. In fact, I'm doing more than surviving. The year after I left Mama's was maybe the hardest year of my life. Long story short, I'm HIV positive.
"HIV isn't a death sentence. I have to be careful, of course, and always take my medicine on time. But I'll die a happy old woman, which is how I want to go.
"I met this amazing guy, Nate King. He's a writer — and my boyfriend — and he's been so good for me, Cocoa. He's the reason I'm doing as well as I am. I never knew love could be like this. I never had any reason to believe in it.
"Now, I'm focusing on giving back to the community. When I turned up at Mama's, I was in need of help. When I left there, I was still in need. I know that I can do more for people in similar situations as mine, and that's what I'm doing. I'm also CEO of a cancer research foundation, an issue that's pretty close to my heart.
"The reason I'm writing is because I never stopped thinking about you and everything you did for me. You deserve to know that, through your intervention and others’, I'm doing better than I ever have before. I don't know what would've happened to me without you. Thank you so much.
"And, if you ever want to part with any of that money you're making, I know a couple of good charities that would benefit. Let me know.
"I miss you and hope you're doing well. You're good at what you do now, but I know you'd be good at anything. You have such a kind, giving nature. Don't ever feel like you're stuck in a situation you don't want to be in. Just keep moving forward.
"That's how I got out.
"You stay in my thoughts. Love, Jasmine."
I took a deep breath. So much had happened to Jazz, but she’d come out okay on the other side. I could do this. This was nothing.
I started packing, shaking my head at the sheer volume of fine lingerie I’d accumulated during my time at the nightclub. Mama was adamant about no raggedy underwear whatsoever. I was able to get most of my clothes in the suitcase even though it bulged when I forced the zipper shut. I left my remaining uniforms on the dresser.
I wouldn’t be needing those anymore.
Everything else I shoved into a tote bag, letters, cards, photos of us girls goofing off. Things that meant something to me, that would remind me of the good times I did have at the nightclub.
I took a shower before wrapping my toiletries in a plastic bag and putting them down in the tote. I laid out a pair of jeans, panties, bra, and shirt for tomorrow.
Tomorrow. The day I wouldn’t live here anymore.
I braided my hair, my fingers fumbling at my wiry strands. I knew that I had to be strong, like Jazz, but it was so hard. How could I leave all of this? I had been with Mama for so many years I didn’t know how else to be anymore. How could I function out there in the regular world?
A hurried knock sounded on my door. Confused, I opened it. It was too early for the shift to be over.
A breathless Blue stood at my threshold, clutching a thick envelope.
“Mama says to tell you that if you want to leave quietly, the time is now,” she recited, “and to give you this.”
I took the envelope and pulled it open, quickly counting the bills it contained.
Blue’s eyes grew big. “How much money is in there?” she asked.
“Enough to shut me up and get me out of here,” I said, shutting the envelope and pushing it into my purse.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her lips trembling.
I shed my kimono and got dressed as fast as I could, not caring that Blue saw me naked. We were closer than sisters.
“Mama has decided I’m a threat to the nightclub because of tonight’s incident,” I said. “She told me I could leave in the morning, but then I screwed her out of cash.”
Blue gasped. “Oh, Cocoa.” Even she knew how serious it was to make Mama part with cash that she didn’t want to give up.
“I’d hoped to say goodbye to everyone,” I said, “but it looks like Mama might exact her threats if I stay here much longer.”
“She threatened you?” Blue asked, gaping. “How serious was what happened down there tonight?”
“It’s bad,” I said, explaining what had happened as I finished getting ready, lacing up some sneakers. In my head, I kept chanting a litany of positives, trying to psyche myself up. At least it’s not winter, at least you have the money, at least you have your things, at least you have your life.
“But where are you going to go?” Blue asked. “It’s the middle of the night and you have all your things! It’s not safe!”
“It’s not safe here,” I said. “I have to take my chances out there.”
Blue’s face lit up. “I have someone — a friend — who needed a roommate,” she said, running out of the hallway and down to her room. “I’m getting her address!”
Blue’s bright light — we could always count on her to make a joke out of anything, lighten the mood with just a word. Now, she was giving me hope for my future.
Blue came barreling out of her room, holding up a torn sheet of paper. “She lives on the other side of town, but you could get a cab to the nearest subway station,” she said, her words tumbling from her mouth as quickly as she could shove them out. This was a new side of Blue to me — she was usually calm and slow spoken, her words drawled more often than not.
“I’ll call one,” I said, turning to the door and stopping short.
Mama was standing there, pointing a small pistol at me. I knew from experience in my old neighborhood that it wasn’t the size of the pistol that mattered. It was the size of the bullet that hit you and where. The trick was not to get shot in the first place.
Blue saw me hesitate and turned around, too, just in time to duck as Mama fired a shot.
“You were my best girl!” she howled, firing a second time. “And now you’re robbing me blind!”
A third shot ricocheted close to us.
“Go,” Blue said, shoving the piece of paper into my hand. “She’ll kill you.”
“She’ll kill us both,” I said, my head covered with one of my hands.
“She’s only angry with you,” Blue reasoned. “Go. Tell Casey I said hi, and that I sent you. I’ll try to give her a call to let her know you’re coming.”
Mama started coming down the hallway at us, another shot making us throw ourselves against the walls. A single tendril of smoke floated up from the carpet, a bullet hole marring the ply.
Mama was blocking the only exit. I knew I had to go out through my bedroom window even though we were up on the second floor. It was that or death.
Blue and I made our moves at the same time. She held her hands up and approached Mama, sliding along down the wall. I slid into my room, grabbing my suitcase, tote bag, and purse.
“Don’t shoot, Mama,” Blue called. “The cops are gonna come back, now, if we keep this up, and you know how that’ll turn out
— two calls in one night.”
Blue was appealing to Mama’s sense of reason, but was it even intact anymore? Was it ever? There was no way to tell, and I had to go.
I heaved the window open and looked down. The dumpster was positioned almost just below my window, the cover open. I could see black trash bags from the nightclub inside.
Would they break my fall? I dropped my suitcase down, judging the bounce it gave when it hit the dumpster. My tote bag was the next to go. I strapped my purse securely across my body, beneath my shirt to make sure I wouldn’t lose it in the fall. It contained my hope — cash and the address to Blue’s friend’s place. I couldn’t lose it.
Peering out the window, I gauged the distance to the dumpster. The height made me a little dizzy. Was I really going to jump? What was in the bags on top — glass beer bottles or food scraps from the kitchen? It would make all the difference in the landing.
A gunshot behind me shattered the window, sending glass flying into my face.
I glanced over my shoulder, aware I’d been cut by the blood flowing into my eyes.
“No, Mama!” Blue said, hanging onto Mama’s shooting arm, flopping around like a rag doll. Mama looked as big and powerful as a bear, a crazed grimace on her face.
“I loved you!” she shouted at me. “Like my very own daughter! And this is how you repay me!”
I didn’t spare any time for a response. I hurled myself out of the window, all hesitation at jumping vanishing in the face of that ugly gun.
I knew it was just a second or two, but I seemed to hover in the air for a long time. Mama and Blue screamed in the background. The streetlamp bathed everything in such a light that it felt like I was suspended in a bowl of gelatin, the kind that Granny used to make for special occasions.
Then, with a shriek, I hit the dumpster. The force of my landing drove all of the air from my lungs. I felt a pop from my ankle, which had twisted beneath the weight of my body, but no pain. I knew that adrenaline was masking it.
Other than that, I was alive. I laughed in disbelief, then ducked at another shot that buried itself deep into the dumpster.
“Stop, Mama!” Blue’s voice echoed out. “The cops are gonna come if you keep shooting!”
I wasted no more time. I threw my tote bag and suitcase out of the dumpster and pulled myself out. My ankle buckled beneath me, but I picked up the tote and suitcase all the same. Patting my side to make sure my purse was still with me, I started hobbling down the alley without a backward glance. No need to dally and give Mama a good target to plug away at.
I emerged on the next street over, avoiding the entrance to the nightclub. If there really were cops on their way, it wouldn’t do to be seen dragging a bum ankle along with a suitcase, looking as I did. I had no idea what the shattered glass had done to my face. I almost didn’t want to know.
My breathing quickened at the pain I was now experiencing. My ankle was injured, but I couldn’t stop now. Not in this neighborhood.
I made it to a major street, but there were no cabs to be found. It was the dead of night, and they were all probably queuing up at soon-to-be closed bars. I cursed myself. Should I have gone to the front of the club and tried to jump in one of the cabs that was almost always outside?
It was too late for that, now. I had to find a cab wherever I could.
“Hey, doll,” came a voice from an alley I was hobbling by. “Let me help you with those bags.”
“Fuck off,” I threw over my shoulder, hurrying along as fast as I could. A cab? I’d take a police car, at this point. Any car. Anybody I could flag down to help me.
“I will, once I get a taste of this pretty thing,” he said, catching my tote bag and dragging me backward.
There was nothing else to do, I told myself later. I released the tote bag and propelled it back into him with a jerk of my elbow. As he stumbled backward onto the pavement, I took off, forcing myself to run in spite of my heavy limping.
My assailant would get the surprise of his life when he opened the bag, expecting money, credit cards, and valuables, and only getting a few clothing items, toiletries, and a bunch of random photos and letters.
It hurt worse than any of my injuries, however, to lose those memories. Each of the photos had represented a happy time with the girls. I wouldn’t have that anymore. Even worse was the loss of Jazz’s letter. That was a blow. Those words had convinced me that I could make it on my own. Now, I wouldn’t have them to guide me in this new life I was going to be forced to take on.
At least he hadn’t taken my purse. That contained all the necessities.
I sobbed in relief. A blessed, blessed taxi. Finally, I wiped at my face with my sleeve, trying to mop up the blood as I ran into the street toward it, waving like a crazy woman. I stood in front of it and forced it to stop, the driver’s mouth moving in silent curses as he leaned on his horn and piled on the brakes.
“Thanks for stopping,” I panted, climbing into the backseat.
“Why’d you jump out in front of me like that?” he shouted. “I coulda killed you!”
“I really needed a cab,” I said, my chest heaving as I looked down the street and saw my assailant making his way toward us. “Just drive!”
The driver took off, the tires burning rubber. I didn’t breathe easily until we were two blocks away.
“Where am I taking you?” the driver asked, looking at me in the rearview window. “Shit, you’re bleeding. To the hospital?”
“No,” I said, “I’ll be fine.” I didn’t know that for a fact, but I had to have something to believe in. I reached into the purse at my side and retrieved the sheet of paper Blue had given me. Hope. That’s what the paper represented. I handed it to the driver.
“But that’s all the way across town,” he said. “And I’m driving in the opposite direction.”
“I’ve got the money if you’ve got the time,” I said. “And it’d be better if we didn’t backtrack through the neighborhood we’ve just come out of. Find a different route.”
Sitting in the back of the taxi, holding onto my suitcase and purse for dear life, everything caught up to me.
Mama had tried to kill me, I realized, even though I’d seen her holding the gun, jumped out of the window to dodge the bullets. The woman I’d grown to love through my years living in her boarding house had tried to kill me over a paltry two grand.
I shook my head, dumbfounded at Mama, dumbfounded at myself and the tears running down my face. Why was this so upsetting? I’d always known that Mama was a little bit too close to her money. Was I that surprised that she would try to kill me over it?
Yes, yes I was. Mama and I had always been close. She trusted me just as much as I trusted her. I supposed we’d both surprised each other tonight — her switching from miserly to murderous in a matter of a few hours, and me standing up for myself.
It had been Jazz who had warned me about Mama and the money I’d been earning. Jazz had never liked the idea of keeping all of her earnings in Mama’s safe even though it was the rules. My former roommate had asked me if I thought Mama would let me withdraw all of my earnings if I’d asked. Back then, I’d supposed Mama would. Why wouldn’t she? It was money that I earned, that she’d been keeping for me in the safe.
Now I knew the truth. In Mama’s eyes, it was all her money. Sure, she might release a little bit at a time to the girls so they could buy snacks, clothes, toiletries, and other necessities, but none of us was saving up to buy a car — or saving up to get out.
That’s how Mama earned the real money. By none of us standing up to get what was rightfully ours.
I shook my head. I’d seen Mama mad before, but this had been extreme. She’d been after me, but I hoped Blue hadn’t been caught in the crossfire. Blue had only been trying to protect me and help get me out of there.
“This is the place,” the driver said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the hospital? There’s one not too far from here.”
“No, but thank
you,” I said, handing him enough bills from my purse to pay him for the ride and his kindness. “This is me.”
“Good luck, then,” he said.
I pushed my suitcase out of the cab and climbed out after it. The taxi departed and I peered up at the apartment building — and the next part of my life.
Chapter 4
The apartment building Blue had directed me to was a tall, well-kept place. It had about twelve stories that I could see. And the area of town was an upgrade from what I was used to.
I stepped up to the entrance and scanned down the list of names. Grimacing, I realized that Blue hadn’t had enough time to tell me Casey’s last name. All of the tenants of the building were presented with the initial of their first name, then their full last name. There were no less than ten people whose names began with a “C.”
