I held Simone’s hand and barely listened to the police officer.
“I couldn’t help but notice some bruises on Dahlia. Though it’s most likely SIDS, we’re going to do an autopsy to verify that.” Then the officer lowered his voice, “Do you think anyone was abusing Dahlia? The babysitter? Her boyfriend? Is he around the baby often?”
My heart was racing. Anxiety set in and magnified into fury. I couldn’t speak as vomit threatened to make an appearance.
I just stared into nothing as Simone answered for me, “I always assumed that she had a boy in the house while she was babysitting.”
“And the bruises?”
“I’ve seen the bruises. Omari noticed them too,” Simone told the officer. “But I never thought Tiana would do such a thing.”
“Figure it out and press charges against that bitch,” I spit.
The officer and Simone looked at me alarmingly.
“Tiana is like family to you,” Simone told me. “Officer, accidents happen, and I am sure that’s all those bruises were.” Then she looked at me again. “Babe, you can’t be serious.”
“Figure it out,” I told the officer. “Do what you gotta do.”
Nine
Omari
Ironically, two days after Dahlia passed I pulled up in front of the spot on Riverdale and saw Eboni standing in the yard talking to Capone.
No matter the bullshit she was on right before Aeysha got killed, admittedly it was good to see her. Her presence reminded me of Aeysha, of good times and a place in time that I would have loved to go back to. I had to hide my happiness to see Eboni since Simone was with me. We were at the spot to get some more of my things to take back to her place.
“Oh, there he go right there,” I heard Capone tell her as me and Simone hopped out of the car.
Both Eboni and I attempted to look at each other nonchalantly because we could feel Simone looking on curiously.
I introduced them to each other while praying for no jealous beef from either one of them. “Simone, this is Eboni, my old neighbor. She was Aeysha’s friend.”
“Hi,” Simone told her quickly as she barely waved. “Nice to meet you.”
Eboni looked at her curiously. I knew that she probably felt some type of way because I was with another woman so soon after Aeysha’s death.
“I’m going in the house, babe. It’s cold,” Simone told me. Before she could say anything else, before I could respond, she quickly walked off and was heading into the house.
“I’ll give y’all some privacy,” Capone told me as he followed Simone.
Eboni continued to look suspiciously as Capone walked towards the crib. I just knew that she was about to give me an earful about having a new woman, but frankly I didn’t owe Eboni shit. She hadn’t been the most loyal friend to Aeysha, so she wasn’t really in the position to say shit.
But as soon as the front door closed, Eboni told me, “I know her.”
“Who?”
“Simone. I know her from somewhere,” she answered with the oddest look on her face. She looked confused, but determined; like she was certain that she knew what the fuck she was talking about.
“From where?”
“I don’t really know. Can’t put my finger on it.”
“Maybe she just has a familiar face.”
She thought for a second and then let it go. “Maybe so.”
Then I couldn’t help but check Eboni out. I wasn’t lusting after her. I was just taking her in because, like I said, she reminded me of a yesterday that I wanted to go back to so desperately. I would have paid any amount of money and given my life over and over again just to go back to the days that I was in that two flat listening to Aeysha nag upstairs while Eboni’s kids ran rampant downstairs against an old noisy wood floor.
Eboni shied away from my stare. “Sorry for just popping up.”
“It’s cool. It’s actually good to see you. How you been?”
With a heavy sigh, she replied, “I’m making it. I can’t complain.”
I couldn’t help but notice how thick she was. She was always thick than a motherfucker, but she had obviously put on a few more pounds.
“You thick as hell. You pregnant again?” I laughed to let her know that I was being playful.
“Whatever,” she replied with a forced laugh.
“How did you know where I lived?”
“Just asked around the hood. You changed your number.”
“Yea, I did. I’m sorry. I meant to give it to you before I moved.”
Eboni sighed and pulled an envelope out of her purse. “Here. I printed out some pictures of Aeysha that I had in my phone. I thought you might want them.”
I could see tears of sorrow in Eboni’s eyes. She was doing a bad job of fighting them back. She took Aeysha’s death just as bad as I did. Despite the bullshit that she and I were on, she loved Aeysha and I know she did. Her lust for me just led her to do some dirty shit that she regretted to that day. Guilt and regret was all over her face. She still mourned Aeysha’s death, and she still mourned her own self respect that was lost when she played her friend so dirty.
I mourned the same.
“How is Dahlia doing?”
I had been so transfixed in this temporary trip back to the past that Eboni’s presence was taking me on that I almost forgot my fucked up present.
I hated to tell her. I put my hands in my pockets. I rocked back and forth trying to soothe my own grief. “She passed.”
“What?!” Eboni was beside herself.
The tears that once teetered at the doorway of her eyelids fell out. I reached out and hugged her. I held her tight. Her cries were muffled into the leather of my Moncler coat.
“What happened?”
“Crib death,” I reluctantly told her.
I let her go and reached into my pocket for my phone. After going into the photo gallery, I began to show Eboni the hundreds of pictures that I had of Dahlia.
“Oh my God,” she said with an amazed and adoring grin. “She had your eyes, but she looked just like Aeysha.”
“Yea, she did. She was beautiful.”
“Can you send me some of those?”
“Sure. Here.”
I handed her my phone and let her go through the pictures and send them to herself as we caught up and talked. She caught me up on what was happening with folks I knew on the block that I once lived on. She told me about the bad ass kids that moved above her in my old apartment. She shared with me how her kids were doing, how they were growing up so fast and often asked about me and Aeysha.
We talked until snow began to fall and we were forced to take cover. I walked her to her car, honestly feeling like I didn’t want her to leave. Like I said, she put me in the mind of Aeysha.
I just didn’t want that feeling to leave.
Simone
Shit! Shit! Shit!
I was in the house freaking the fuck out! My hands were literally shaking as I hoisted myself up on the back of the couch to look out of the window.
I frantically watched Omari and Eboni’s exchange from the living room window. All the while I kept trying to ensure that Capone was still in the kitchen, unable to see how I was literally freaking out.
I wondered if Eboni remembered me from that day at Leona’s. Though my hair was different, she looked at me like she thought I was familiar.
When I would hear Capone coming, I would go back to packing the box on the couch with Omari’s clothes.
Once Omari walked her to the car, I got so anxious. My heart beat so nervously that my blood pressure skyrocketed to the point that my chest got tight. If Omari found out about me going to Leona’s that day, so many cans of worms would open that I could never manage to close with even the most imaginative lie that I could come up with.
“Hey, baby.” When Omari came into the living room, I realized that he wasn’t upset, at least not at me, so I figured that Eboni didn’t recognize me after all.
“You okay?” I met him
in the middle of the floor and put my arms around him.
“Yea, I’m good. It was just a lot seeing her.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“Are you almost done? I’m ready to get out of here.”
Of course, Omari had been in the worst mood for the last couple of days. I was happy for him that he managed to come out of the house that day.
“Yea. I got most of the clothes you wanted.”
“What should we do about Dahlia’s services?” He was in a daze as he sat on the couch. He hadn’t even heard a word that I said.
I sat beside him answering, “Whatever you wanna do, babe. What is it that you want to do?”
“I don’t want a funeral service. Is that bad?”
There was so much sorrow in those beautiful gray eyes. I looked into his eyes feeling as if I would stop at nothing to make sure that I was the person that put happiness back into his spirit.
“It’s not bad if that’s what you want.”
“I can’t sit through another funeral,” he said fighting tears.
“I know, baby.”
“Can you take care of everything? I can’t…”
I cut him off before his emotions took him to a place of no return. “I got you, baby.”
He took deep breaths and fought the sorrow. He was so strong. His strength made me fall in love with him even more. “Make sure she gets buried as close to Aeysha as possible. Get her a nice pretty headstone.”
“Consider it done.”
Then, for the first time since finding out that I was pregnant, he reached over and touched my stomach. He caressed my stomach, squatted, and kissed it through my Chanel sweater.
My heart melted.
Finally, he was all in. He was where I needed him to be. I finally had security. Finally, it was all about me and mines. But I still wasn’t pregnant. At that point, even if he got me pregnant, I wouldn’t deliver on the necessary due date. Omari thought that I was almost three months pregnant at that point. Even if I got pregnant that day, I couldn’t reasonably deliver in six months. I had even gone as far as taking prenatal vitamins every morning, which luckily made me throw up if I took them on an empty stomach. I needed to have a baby. The look in his eyes as he touched my stomach validated so much for me. Finally, I had that security. I was the only woman.
But with the timing being off, I didn’t know where that baby was going to come from. Yet, it had to come from somewhere. I didn’t have an option. I was so obsessed with making this work. I would have his baby. I just didn’t know how.
Chance
I had been at Gia’s crib all day. After weeks of hustling non-stop my body crashed and I slept most of the day.
Waking up with my hand on the curve of Gia’s back and her weave in my face was a smack of reality. It was crazy how many turns my life had taken within the last couple of months. I went from a ward of the state, to a killer, to homeless and broke, to hustling aside major dope boys and fucking the baddest stripper in Chi Town’s most popular strip club.
Even though things were looking up, I still felt like shit every time I thought about Simone. The way that she was treating me was really fucking with me. She still hadn’t reached out to me since the day she came to the hotel and dropped that grand on me. I wanted answers. I needed this stupid and insecure feeling that was hovering over me every day to go away. And only she could make it go away by giving me some fucking answers. So when Gia got out of bed to take a shower, I called Simone.
I was obsessed with making this bitch fess up to her bullshit. All I needed her to tell me was that she used my goofy ass, because ignoring me like I was irrelevant was pissing me the fuck off.
After six rings, I got her voicemail.
I called again.
I could hear the shower running over my anger. My anger was fueled by visions of seeing that girl’s body fall, fueled by memories of coming to the horrible realization that I had just shot a woman that was very much pregnant, and fueled with the immense disgust for Simone that I felt when I saw nothing but satisfaction on her face as she watched her lie on the ground bleeding to death until a neighbor came out to her car and saw her laying there.
After three rings, I got the voicemail. I was obviously sent to voicemail, so I called right back. I just wanted the bitch to acknowledge me, to acknowledge the fact that she fucked up my life without a care in the world, to acknowledge that she’d tricked me into killing a chick that probably had done none of the things she’d claimed she had.
“Stop calling me!!”
Simone caught me off guard when she answered.
She definitely threw me for a loop when she screamed at me like I was a terrorist.
“Stop fucking calling me, fucking stalker! I got a man!”
Then, she hung up.
Omari
“We can’t just keep fucking with him, boss. Either we gone kill him or lay off.”
Nonchalantly, I chuckled as Capone and I stood in the back yard of the spot out south. Of course, Capone was smoking a blunt full of loud, despite already popping a molly.
While I never did any narcotics, Capone did enough for the both of us, I swear.
“If you’re scared, go to church.”
Capone laughed like I’d told the joke of the century; like Kevin Hart himself had his little ass in the backyard with us doing his best stand up.
“Scared? Nah. Neva scared. Just ready to get shit crackin’. Fuck them dirty ass niggas.”
I leaned against the brick of the building as I hid behind the collar of my Pelle. It was cold as fuck outside, but I was so out of it mentally that I was willing to suffer through it in order to get some air.
It was crazy how Dahlia’s passing had gone straight over my head. Her death wasn’t what had me shook. It was the fact that it didn’t hurt that scared the fuck outta me.
Aeysha’s murder was such a heartbreaking loss for me. I knew pain like no other. At that moment, I knew that I’d experienced the worst pain of my life when I buried her, because nothing was coming close to making me feel that way again.
I mourned my baby girl, but mourning for her mother still overshadowed anything that would let me cry for her. At the young age of twenty-eight, I was used to death. Unlike street niggas who were used to death and thought nothing of it because they felt like it came with the territory, I was used to tragic loses and devastating pain.
“It’ll crack soon enough,” I told Capone. “He’ll come to me.”
“He don’t even know that it’s us jackin’ him.”
“He will.”
Initially, I banked on taking Ching for everything. I planned on his organization crumbling as a result of Ching not knowing who was disloyal and taking him for everything. Then, I planned for him to hear through the streets how I was coming up heavy out south and putting two and two together; that his “nephew” was robbing him blind. He would then know that this was war because I knew that he’d killed Ayesha and would know that robbing him was first, but death was next.
Yet, the only part of that plan that had actually formulated was Ching assuming that somebody in his camp was robbing him. Capone still had connections out west that told him everything. Too scared to kill and end up back in the joint, Ching was whooping niggas asses and taking names left and right trying to figure out who was taking his shit.
“Real talk, we are risking our lives and our business. We start playing these games and niggas gone wanna retaliate. What if they hit us and take our stash? What if they ain’t so careful about killing a nigga as we are? I know you wanted a war, but this ain’t no war. You just fuckin’ with him.”
“And I’mma keep fuckin’ with him until I’m ready to pop his ass.”
Though he looked at me like I was crazy and shook his head in the same manner, he simply replied, “A’ight, boss.”
I knew that Capone thought I was crazy. He thought I was losing it. But he was loyal, so he just had my back while I ran rampant.
“I don’t
know what I’m doing, no lie,” I confessed. “I’m all over the place, but can you blame me?”
With smoke spilling from his nose and sympathy pouring out of his eyes, Capone told me, “Nah, man. I can’t blame you.”
It was crazy how even though Capone knew that the shit I was doing didn’t make any sense and was risky, he still had my back. For that, I was more careful with the decisions that I made because I was more careful with his life than my own.
Gia
Clappers to the front, front, front, front
Clappers to the front, front, front, front
Shawty got a big ol’ butt
Oh Yeeeeeah!!!
The DJ had played “Clappers” just for me, so I was on the stage getting it! That night, I chose to be the “girl next door”. Therefore, I was on stage on all fours bouncing my ass vigorously in simple black “Red Bottoms” and a black lace lingerie Vickie Secret set. Topped with garters, thigh highs, and a high bun, I looked like I had dressed up for my man and was dancing for him in our bedroom on Valentine’s Day.
But the real scene was nothing of the sort. The stage was surrounded by an entourage of white businessmen who were clearly from out of town. They were older, mid to late forties, with salt and pepper hair cut into styles that caused hair to fall into their faces. Their faces were drenched with sweat caused from the tension of watching black ass all night. Their money was money. So I shook my ass like there was no tomorrow. I bent over in front of one, putting my mouth over the crotch of his Dockers, while another made it rain continuous dead men on my backside.
Got ass for days, come activate
This ass on fire evacuate
Throw that ass in the air, evaporate
Where your money little bitch? Evaluate
If you got big money elaborate
Secrets of a Side Bitch 2 Page 9
