by Ni-Ni Simone
Oh, two can play these games, I thought, folding my arms.
I tilted my head and stared back.
He squinted his eyes.
I squinted mine.
Then he asked, “Why am I here? Is it for ransom?”
“Ransom? Daddy, no. No one is holding you for ransom. This is your home.”
He scowled. “My home is in the wild. Not here in this, this fortress. I’m king of the jungle.”
“Well, sorry to inform you, your majesty. But there is no jungle. And, here, you’re just Daddy.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Then where are my children?”
I blinked. Ohfortheloveofpigfeetjuice! Here we go with this again.
I sighed. “Daddy, you only have one child. Me.”
“Oh, I see. Then why am I being held hostage?”
“You’re not a hostage,” I said in the most sweetest, calmest voice I could muster. But inside I was churning. My guts were bubbling with agitation. My patience for daddy was wearing thinner than his hairline. But I was determined to stay loving and kind.
I glared at his shiny forehead, talking myself out of snatching the fresh-cut lilies from out of their crystal vase and, and, and—
“I demand my release. This instant.” He jabbed a finger toward me. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, you thief. I’ll have you hung from a tree and tarred and feathered.”
I took a deep breath. Forced my eyeballs from swirling around in their sockets. It was seven in the morning, and Daddy was trying my nerves already. I wasn’t in the mood for any of his shenanigans. Not. To. Day.
I had to get to school.
I took another deep breath. Then the theme song for Mission Impossible started playing in my head. I pulled my Chanels down over my eyes and shimmied across the room in step to its beat. All I needed was some six-inch gladiator sandals and a black trench coat.
“No one gives a damn I’m missing, anyway,” he said, sounding defeated, plunking down in one of the leather wingback chairs.
“Well, I do,” I said gently. “But it’s a good thing you’re not missing. Then I’d have to go looking for you. I’d hunt you down real good too.”
He grunted. “Yeah. That’s right. Hunt me down like a wild boar. Then cage me in, before roasting me on an open fire.”
I sat in the other chair beside his. I reached for his hand. “Oh, Daddy, stop. No one’s going to roast you. Or cage you in.” I crossed my legs, then patted his warm, frail hand. “Now, I might put a cute little studded collar around your neck and leash you to keep you from wandering off.”
He squinted. Studied my face. Then asked, “Who are you again?”
I sighed. This was what I had to go through, moments when Daddy didn’t remember my name or know who I was to him.
I fought the urge to dig my nails into his flesh. This wasn’t his fault. I had to keep reminding myself of that to keep myself centered and on task. I had to remind myself why I was in here this morning.
“Da—um . . .” I caught myself from calling him Daddy. “You don’t know who I am? Look closer.” He leaned in closer, his nose barely touching mine. I could smell his morning breath.
It stunk.
Hot and funky.
After several moments of me holding my breath as he stared me in the face, the Mission Impossible theme song started playing in my head again.
“Tell me your name,” he demanded.
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . .”
Yes, yes! I accept! Bring it on, goshdiggitydangit!
I leaned over and kissed Daddy on the cheek, then stage-whispered. “It’s me. Cleola Mae.”
12
London
I was over him. I knew I was. But for some reason, my mind still reeled back to him.
The ghost of my past.
Justice Banks.
My first love.
The first boy I’d ever kissed. Really kissed. With an open mouth and lots of tongue.
The first boy I gave my mind, body, and soul to.
I was fourteen.
Young.
Dumb.
And blinded by fairy tales.
And make-believe happily-ever-after.
I was so swept up in the fantasy that he and I were connected forever that I gave up every part of me for him. Not because he asked me to or expected me to, but because I needed that boy like I needed air.
He’d quickly become my guilty pleasure. My dangerous addiction wrapped in chocolate ropes of muscle and sweet warm kisses. He’d become essential to my living.
Had become my . . . everything.
The air I breathed.
My heartbeat.
My total existence.
Everything I was, everything I ever thought I’d be, was because of him.
Justice, Justice, Justice . . .
My nightmare.
My worst mistake realized.
I would defy my own parents. Go against everything I was taught. Sneak off to be with him every chance I got. Knowing my parents would never approve of him. Never.
Because he was from the projects.
Because he was ghetto.
Because he was a hoodlum.
Still, my heart wanted what it wanted.
And it wanted Justice.
Wanted his warm touch.
Wanted his watermelon kisses.
Wanted his heated passion.
Whenever he wasn’t around, every nerve in my body ached for him. I needed to hear his voice. Needed to feel his touch. Needed him in the softest places reserved only for him.
I’d given that boy the key to every part of me.
And what did he do with it?
He’d twisted and turned and yanked me apart.
Tore my heart out. Then stomped all over it.
Justice had taken my love for granted.
Mistreated me.
Disrespected me.
He didn’t ever love me.
How could he?
All he ever did was love me down in the sheets, then leave behind his imprint and a bunch of empty promises. All he ever did was leave me in a state of panic. Kept me somewhere crouched down on the floor crying and wringing my hands every time he broke up with me. All he did was keep me crazed and desperate and chained to pain, snotty-nosed and boo-hooing every time he refused to return any of my calls. All he did was have me begging and crying and pleading for him to answer his phone, for him to take me back, to give me another chance after chance after chance to do better, to love him more. To prove to him that I was all he needed.
But I wasn’t.
“Stupid-azz trick! You’re pathetic . . .”
“If you was a dude, I’d break ya jaw . . . for bein’ so effen stupid . . .”
“. . . If I woulda knew how silly you was, I woulda never effed with you from the rip . . .”
“You make me sick, yo. Wit’ ya ugly self. You insecure. Fat, nasty . . .”
I’d always been a cameraman’s dream, but Justice had said many times I was ugly. That four-letter word ugly slashed into my psyche and had me believing him. That I was ugly. That I wasn’t worth a camera’s flashbulbs.
“. . . Look at you, six-foot-tall, giraffe-neck self. Big-foot Amazon. Don’t nobody want you. I was the best thing you’ll ever have . . .”
“Stop it!” I hissed, holding my hands up over my ears. “Just shut up! Get out of my head!”
I shot up in bed—the same bed I’d laid up in so many days and nights with Justice, reaching over and clicking on the light on my nightstand. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, rocking. Allowing my tears to fall unchecked.
“London Elona Phillips, will you marry me?”
“I can’t wait to spend my life with you . . . you’re so beautiful. Ain’t nobody ever gonna love you like me. You’re all mine, London . . .”
Oh God! What a crock of lies!
How could I have been so blind?
Justice had had me stuck
on stupid. Had me so caught up in the thrill of doing something I knew I shouldn’t have been doing, all for the sake of experiencing that same exact rush I’d felt the very first time I’d done it.
That boy had me playing Russian roulette with my life and my inheritance. Because had my mother ever caught us together, she would have certainly snatched my trust fund away from me, banishing me to a life of soup kitchens, flea markets, and sidewalk shoe sales.
I’d thought I’d been the perfect girlfriend. But apparently not perfect enough. Aside from not hooking him up with Rich, like I was supposed to, I’d done everything else right. I let him sex me down whenever he wanted it. I’d drop whatever I was doing to be with him whenever he’d be kind enough to make time for me. I didn’t stress him. Didn’t question him. Didn’t smother him—well, tried not to. Still, I gave him his space. Let him do him. But, obviously, that still wasn’t enough.
Silly of me.
I reached up and swiped tears from my face. Justice had been cancerous. A user. And, finally—thanks to him breaking up with me, I’d learned to cut him out of my life. He’d given me no choice when he’d chosen Rich over me. Still, the scars were fresh. The pain was real. He had hurt me. Cut me deep.
But I was healing. And therapy was really helping me see the light. And, yes, I was over the likes of Justice Banks. But what I wasn’t over was my so-called friendship with Rich. I thought I was. But seeing her at school confirmed what I’d been trying to ignore.
I missed her.
I missed our banter.
Missed our sisterly fights.
We were frenemies, for a lack of a better word to describe our love-hate relationship. And I was torn and confused, and one big ball of contradictions. I liked and loathed her at the same time. I admired and despised her equally.
True, she made me sick. But I was sicker without her than I was around her.
True, I wanted to smack the crap out of her, but I wanted to hug her too.
True, Rich Montgomery was toxic and poisonous, but she was also a good-time party girl and lots of fun.
And she was right.
I did owe her an apology.
For not being a good friend to her, for going behind her back and telling her ex-boyfriend Knox (the boyfriend I didn’t know she even had because she’d been sleeping with other boys and had been calling another boy, Corey—a senator’s son, from Hollywood High—her boyfriend) that she’d had an abortion, not a miscarriage, like she’d lied and told him she’d had.
I’d done it to break them up.
Her obsession with Knox had become an unexpected obstacle in a much bigger plan, to get her to fall for Justice. First, I had to introduce her to him. But before I could make that happen, I needed to put a wedge between her and Knox.
I needed her single and vulnerable.
And ready to fall into Justice’s waiting arms.
But then Justice turned on me. Said I wasn’t moving fast enough. That he was sick of waiting for me to make moves for him. That he was taking matters into his own hands, which is what he’d done when he went behind my back and called her.
So how could I be mad at her for falling head over heels for Justice when she’d had no clue about me being with him or the fact that she was only going to be used for his own personal gain?
In honesty, I couldn’t hold her whorish ways against her. She was what she was. So it was only a matter of time before she spread open her thighs and welcomed Justice into her mantrap.
Still, I owed her the truth. That Justice and I had been boyfriend and girlfriend since I was fourteen. That we’d been scheming, plotting, planning from the moment he and I started going together to get him his very own record deal. That the plan was for me to introduce them; he’d pretend to like her, then they’d start kicking it, then eventually dating.
I knew Rich was a whore—and so did all the teen tabloids. Knew she was hot and easy for fine, rugged boys.
Justice was just that.
And he could sing. Really sing.
So his dream to become a famous singer to secure our future so that we could be together became my dream too. I wanted what he wanted. To see his name plastered all over billboards and his face on the cover of every magazine, from Rolling Stone to Vibe.
The plan was foolproof. Or at least I thought it would be.
But then things unexpectedly changed.
I changed.
I’d had a change of heart.
I’d tried to back out of the plan. Tried to get him to reconsider, maybe go independent. But he wasn’t trying to hear it.
“Yo, you must be on crack! Talkin’ about some independent. I haven’t been puttin’ in all this time with you to be hustlin’ out of the trunk of my whip. I coulda stayed in New York for that . . .”
Needless to say, that had turned into another one of Justice’s nasty tirades, with him belittling me, all because I was having second thoughts. He just didn’t get it. I hadn’t planned on liking the boom-bop-crunk-it-up drama queen known as Rich. Hadn’t planned on getting close to her. Hadn’t planned on halfway loving her like a stepsister.
Yes, she was a loudmouth. Yes, she was a bully. Yes, she was hateful. Yes, she was a scandalous ho-bag. But, still, she’d been the closest thing to a friend out here. She’d shown me around California. And we’d had some fun times together. She was Tinseltown royalty and had gotten me into all the hot spots without a second glance.
No, she wasn’t a loyal friend. Heck, the girl probably couldn’t spell friend. But she’d still been a half of one, nonetheless.
However, what I hadn’t planned on was Justice really playing me for her. Or for him to sleep with her slutty butt, even though it was supposed to be just an act, while he was still with me. Nor had I planned on him really wanting to be with her.
No, no, no.
I hadn’t planned on that.
So, sadly, everything had backfired in my face.
I’d lost my dignity.
Lost my self-esteem.
Lost my will to live.
And lost Justice to a whore.
But losing him to her sadly forced me to see the truth about him.
That he was never any good for me.
That he was trouble.
That he never, ever deserved me.
Although I was convinced that Rich and Justice deserved each other, she still had the right to know the truth.
I glanced over at the pile of gossip magazines that sat at the side of my bed. Rich’s face smirked over at me from one of the covers. I closed my eyes and wished she’d wake up in the morning and be cursed with crow’s feet, then reached over and swiped the pile of trashy publications to the floor.
I settled back into bed, clicking off my lamp.
Yes. Tomorrow the truth would clear the air between Rich and me.
And set me free.
13
Rich
“Yo, for real, yo?” Justice said, as he leaned against the door frame, with one bushy eyebrow arched and the other dipped low. He pointed behind him to his apartment. “Didn’t I just put you outta here the other day, yo? And you think you just gon’ show up to my spot like it’s all good? Oh hell naw.”
My heart thundered, and the Goddess of Eff-Him-Girl told me to gather my cuteness and my pride and leave his busted behind right here.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I stretched my hand toward his face and tried to rub his beard, something he usually loved for me to do. But not today. Today he pushed my hand away. “You buggin’.”
“Don’t be like that, JB. You my baby-boo. My honeydew. My destiny. My pop-pop-get-it-get-it-daddy. And I’m here ’cause I know you miss me, and I miss you too. So let’s make it do what it do and be boos again.”
His brown gaze told me he was unimpressed, and his lips confirmed it. “Word is bond, yo. Here’s what you gon do: Step.” He flicked his fingers and practically mushed me in the head. “You don’t come up over here without calling. Unannounced. Runnin’ u
p to my crib like somebody stole yo’ phone and yo’ bike.”
I was trying to be patient and play nice, but I could feel my attitude about to shift, which meant Justice was on his way to being cussed out. I sighed, “Justice, you know how many times I’ve been here and not called you, and you let me in? Don’t front. Now I’m trying to be nice to you, come inside, and turn you out. You trying my patience, though.”
He shook his head. “Your mouth never stops, yo. For real you need to be slapped in it and be made to eat the cake, Anna-Mae.”
I started to roll my eyes, but instead I bit the inside of my jaw and remained silent. Not because I didn’t have anything to say but because I was not in the mood to be tearing it up outside his front door. I could take it to his head in private. This way we could passionately make up, like we always did.
“Justice—”
“I’m serious, yo. Step. Then when you get to wherever you goin’, call me back and ask for permission to come over here.”
“You buggin’.”
“Bye, Felicia.”
Wham!
He slammed the door in my face and left me standing there, looking mortified and feeling stupid. I couldn’t believe he just played me like that! It’s okay, though. It’s cool. ’Cause I’m done here. Finished. Eff him. Eff his mama. And eff the trap house he grew up in!
I stormed to my car, peeled outta the parking lot, and raced up the highway. If he thought I was about to ask for permission, then he was crazier than I thought. I wish I would call him. Psst, please. Clutching pearls. Rich Montgomery don’t do that and don’t play that.
I turned the radio up and did everything I could to block out thoughts of Justice and jam to Jasmine Sullivan’s Reality Show.
Then it hit me. Call Corey.
Yes! My ex-boo-thang. He always wanted me, so I knew I could spend some time with him and get Justice off my mind. I dialed his number, and he answered on the first ring, “Whatup?” He whispered.
“Hey, poo!”
“Hey, wassup?” He continued to whisper.
“No. I wanna see you. And why are you whispering?”
“Ohhhh, about that.” He hesitated. “I gotta new side chick. I can only handle two chicks at a time. And I can’t tell you her name, but I can tell you this: She’s a Kardashian. So you already know what’s up, I gotta get this sex tape poppin before she move on to the next. So don’t sweat it. They don’t let the same dude hit it for long. So the side chick spot will be vacant in a minute. A’ight? You good, though?”
