Money Never Sleeps

by Tu-Shonda Whitaker

  “Ma!” he said as she pushed the stroller toward him.

  “You have to go,” she said.

  Jabril stood frozen. “I don’t have no place else to go, Ma. Chill.”

  “You have two baby mamas and a sorry-ass daddy. Take your pick. But staying here with me can’t happen anymore. I’m done.”

  Jaise walked into the house and it took everything she had not to break down. She squeezed her eyes tightly. Never had she imagined that this would happen. She’d been left on her ass. She loved her son, but she had to let him go. She was the best thing and the worst thing that had happened to him.

  Jabril pounded on the door and with every knock and muffled scream of, “Ma, let me in!” Jaise felt like someone had shot her in the chest. She pressed her back against the door. She knew that if she kept standing her knees would give way. So she slid to the floor and cried until all she could see was a sea of blur.

  Vera

  Vera stood, poised and picture perfect, in the center of her gourmet kitchen wearing five-inch stilettos, designer jeans, a Chanel tee, and eighty-inch double-strand pearls, wondering when she’d quit being true to herself for the sake of fame and fortune.

  She hated stardom. Rewind that—she hated bad press, and she hated people in her business. Scratch that—she hated people in her bullshit.

  There was a difference.

  She wanted the media to pay attention to what she had to offer, and to how far she’d come in life from the piss-filled projects to Fifth Avenue. She didn’t want or need them to care about why Taj had lied, because she didn’t have an answer for that.

  And no matter how many nights she cried, screamed, prayed, and ached until her body convulsed, and “Dear God” fell dryly from her mouth, she couldn’t pinpoint when the true Vera had been taken. All she knew was that the around the way chick who didn’t tolerate anyone’s shit had been kidnapped and replaced by a pathetic bitch.

  I’m his son’s mother. Dion’s voice slammed into Vera’s thoughts and haunted her, creating a vision of Taj, his son, and Dion as one big, happy family. Vera blinked but the vision didn’t leave. Instead it grew more intense. She could see them making love and laughing at her.

  All these years, she thought as the vision slowly faded. All these fuckin’ years! I loved your ass. Shared my fears and my most intimate feelings. I thought for sure you could read my mind.

  You didn’t love me.

  You couldn’t have loved me.

  I’ve been stole on …

  I’ve been sucker punched and made to stand here and take the beat down on TV.

  Uncertain what to do but knowing that she needed to sit down, Vera sat at her kitchen desk and turned on her laptop. She meant to check her e-mail and then turn off the computer. Yet before she thought twice, she was painstakingly combing the blogs. She read article after article and opinion after opinion about her life. Her marriage. Her fight with Taj. The other woman. Taj’s son.

  Nothing about her salons or her million-dollar deal with HSN. Nothing about her surviving hell or her testament of how a little ghetto girl had grown to be a rich bitch who handled her business. Nothing. Just line after line about how her life was a facade.

  And maybe it was.

  Maybe she was a fake. A phony. Perpetrator. A make-believe top bitch who thought she knew it all. And all along there was someone else who knew more about her than she knew about herself.

  Vera looked around at the people in her house—Carl, Bridget, her assistant—and she wanted to tell them all to get the fuck out.

  But she couldn’t.

  She had enough egg on her face. And so here she stood, turning back toward the camera, wearing a stupid-ass Cover Girl smile, when she really wanted to find a corner and crumble.

  “Good morning, Mommy.” Skyy skipped into the kitchen, her shoulder-length ponytail swinging from side to side as her sandals tapped across the marble floor. She hopped up on a barstool and sat at the kitchen island. “Mommy,” she said. “Were you crying last night? Are you sad?”

  Vera looked at her, taken aback. “No, baby.” She reached across the island, cupped Skyy’s chin, and kissed her in the center of her forehead. “Your mommy’s fine.” She turned toward the camera. “This is the best part of my morning.” Vera’s lips curled into a smile. “Spending time with my daughter before camp.” She fixed Skyy a bowl of cereal and handed it to her.

  “How sweet.” Bridget yawned. “Carl, wake me up when this is over.”

  “Mommy, where’s my daddy?” Skyy said with a full mouth and a stream of milk escaping the right corner of her lips.

  Vera paused. What do I say? Think. “He’ll be here to see you soon.”

  “Is he working?” Skyy pressed.

  Vera hesitated. A sack of marbles filled her throat. Think. “I’m not sure.”

  “Okay.” Skyy stuffed her mouth. “I really need to see him.”

  Relax. She’s a child. Your child. It’ll be okay. “Why, baby?” Vera poured herself a cup of coffee.

  “Because I wanna know why his underwear was hanging off the terrace.”

  Vera’s eyes bugged. She thought she’d had the staff clean everything up.

  Skyy went on. “His boxers.” She smacked her lips. “His socks, everything was all over the place. I even saw a pair of his briefs hanging on the flagpole a few flights below.”

  “The flagpole?” Vera gasped.

  “And, Mommy,” Skyy continued as if she were telling the world’s most exciting story. “I was so embarrassed because Alicia pointed out the underwear hanging there.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Vera assured Skyy.

  “Mommy, these kids in camp yesterday were saying bad things about you and Daddy.”

  “What were they saying?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  Vera walked over and sat next to Skyy. “What do you mean, you can’t tell me? You can tell me anything. You know that.”

  “But it might hurt your feelings and make you cry.”

  “I promise I won’t cry.” She stroked Skyy’s cheek.

  Skyy said, “Well, some kids told everybody that they heard my daddy has a love child and that my family is a stupid fake.”

  “What?” Vera said, feeling like a bomb had gone off in her stomach.

  “They even said that you and Daddy could’ve never been happy, because if you were he wouldn’t have had a love child and embarrassed you. I told them to stop lying! But they told me it was in all the blogs. What’s a blog?”

  “It’s what someone thinks, written on their website.”

  “Oh. Okay. And I kept telling them to stop teasing me, but they wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  “I’ll speak to the camp counselor,” Vera said and then she paused and stared at Skyy. In all her years living in the belly of the gutter and having a junkie for a mother, she’d never had to deal with anything as hurtful as looking her seven-year-old baby in the eyes, and knowing she had to tell her that their life as they knew it was over.

  Vera bit her bottom lip. “You may hear certain things about me and your daddy, but I only want you to believe what I tell you. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Vera hesitated. “Your daddy.” She paused again. “Has a son.” She swallowed and felt as if her throat had been slit.

  Damn, damn, damn, don’t cry. You can’t cry. Swallow. Breathe. Handle it.

  Vera wanted to press forward and say something encouraging to Skyy but she didn’t know what, so she sighed, her throat trembled, and her words lingered.

  “Daddy has a son? What’s his name?”

  “Aidan.” Vera pushed her bruised heart from her mouth back into her chest. “He’s uh, about your age, actually a little younger.”

  Skyy’s brown eyes gleamed like chocolate jewels. “I have a brother! A little brother? Wow! And his name is Aidan. Mommy, ever since the baby died, I’ve always wanted one of those!” She jumped up from her seat and pumped her fist in the air. “Yay! Just wait unt
il I tell Ciara this, and Mommy—” She looked at a teary-eyed Vera and paused. “You don’t have to cry, Mommy. This is a good thing. I’m sure we’ll love Aidan.” Skyy nodded for emphasis. “Just tell Daddy to bring him home when I get out of camp so I can meet him! Oh.” She rubbed her hands together. “I can’t wait.” She started to dance. “I can’t wait for Daddy to get home!”

  Vera stared at Skyy and watched her hips move in glee from side to side. “Skyy.” She walked over and squatted beside her. “Daddy’s not coming home.”

  Skyy’s hips froze. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s going.” Vera cleared her throat. Just say it. “To be living somewhere else. Not with us. It’s just going to be me and you living here.”

  “Is Daddy still mad at me? Because I poured his cologne on Fluffy? I only did it because Fluffy was stinky. I’m sorry.”

  “No, baby. It has nothing to do with you. Your daddy loves you so much. He would never be mad enough to leave because of anything you did.”

  “Will I see him again?”

  “Yes.” Vera mustered a smile. “You’ll be able to visit him on weekends and holidays.”

  Skyy squinted. “So we won’t be a real family anymore?”

  Vera’s voice cracked, and her entire speech about how parents who didn’t live together were still a family died in her mouth. Instead a moan slipped out. “I’m sorry, Skyy—” She leaned back against the cabinets, her thighs slapped on the marble floor, and she cried until her entire body rocked. She could feel Skyy’s tiny arms wrapped around her, her small hands patting Vera on the back. This was not how it was supposed to go. Her daughter wasn’t supposed to comfort her. What kind of backward shit was this?

  “It’ll be okay, Mommy.” Skyy wiped Vera’s tears. She slid onto Vera’s lap. “My friend Ciara doesn’t live with her daddy. And my friend Kayla, she doesn’t even know her daddy. So it’ll be okay.” She wiped Vera’s eyes. “You don’t have to cry.” She slid her arms around Vera’s neck.

  “I’m soooo sorry, Skyy. You deserve so much more than this.”

  “We’ll be a family again, Mommy.” Skyy assured her. “You’ll see. I’ma have a talk with Daddy and he’ll be back home. Just wait and see.”

  You need to get yourself together. This is crazy. Vera wiped her eyes, looked at Skyy, and forced herself to smile. “You’re a good girl.” She hugged her. “And I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

  “I know, Mommy. I love you too.” She stretched her arms out. “Like this much!”

  A genuine smile lit up Vera’s face. “And I love you more than that.” She softly grabbed Skyy’s face and blew bubbles against her cheeks.

  “You’re silly, Mommy!” Skyy laughed as Vera tickled her.

  After a few moments of soothing laughter, Vera sniffed and said, “Okay, Miss Goofy, time to go.” They rose from the floor. “And listen.” She brushed Skyy’s shorts set off. “I don’t want you to be concerned about me or your daddy. If those kids say anything to you that’s not nice, you let them know I’ll be speaking with their mother, and you tell the counselor.”

  “The counselor doesn’t listen, so if they say anything about my daddy, I’ma slam ’em.” She took a karate stance. “Hi-yah!”

  “No, you will not.”

  “Well, I’ma tell Aunt Cookie on them. Aunt Cookie said she fights kids.”

  “Skyy, behave.”

  “Okay, Mommy.”

  Vera kissed Skyy on the forehead. “Now, remember what I told you. No matter what you hear, you only believe what I tell you. And if you’re not sure about something, you come to me and we’ll talk about it. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Skyy hugged her as the doorbell rang.

  “I bet that’s the driver to take you to camp.” Vera pressed the button on the security monitor and zoomed in on the front door. “It is.”

  “Okay, Mommy.” Skyy grabbed her backpack, ran toward the door, then quickly ran back to Vera and hugged her around the waist. “I don’t want you to cry anymore. Okay? Daddy will be back home. He loves us.” She squeezed Vera and the bell rang again. “I gotta go, Mommy.” And she skipped out the door.

  Vera looked around the room at a sleeping Bridget, a teary-eyed Carl, and her assistant, who shot her a sad smile. For a moment, a split second of insanity, Vera thought about breaking down and crying again. Instead she walked over to her floor-to-ceiling kitchen window and stared out into the morning sunlight.

  Curtains

  Milan

  Milan knew things would end like this.

  She could feel it in her gut.

  In her bones.

  In her very being.

  It was as if the ending had been whispered in her ear when she was nine and crushin’ on this motherfucker, and when she was a teen and loving this motherfucker, and again when she grown and was his mistress and he was her maintenance man and she sacrificed her whole life to be with him.

  If only she had stopped to listen at least once, then she would’ve been prepared when it turned out that all she’d have in the end would be … nothing.

  Funky fresh, fly, dope … or you just a lyin’ niggah?

  She stood in the shower and leaned against the tile wall as beads of water beat against her body. Tears rocked her throat and pain kicked her in the chest. This was the last time she would love Kendu. It had to be. She had overdosed on his bullshit, was cracked out and trippin’ over his unfulfilled promises. There were no more tears left. None.

  The only problem she had now were the memories.

  “You wanna be my girl?” Kendu had asked her when she was ten and he was eleven. He tossed a football in the air and she watched it twirl into his cupped palms.

  “I don’t know you like that.” Milan popped her lips as pop rocks danced in her mouth.

  “Yes, you do. You love me, girl.” He tossed the football.

  “You need to go see Coach Reid if you wanna play ball.”

  “That’s where I’m going.”

  “Good, ’cause if you wanna talk to me I’ma need all your attention.”

  “All my attention? That must mean you gon’ be my wife. And if you my wife then we gotta kiss.”

  “Ill.”

  “It’s not nasty.”

  “Well, how you do it?”

  “Like this.” He grabbed her behind and shoved his tongue into her mouth.

  She pushed his chest. “You don’t be sticking your tongue in my mouth and grabbing my behind! I should get my brother to kick your ass!”

  And she should’ve, because then she wouldn’t be standing here twenty years later like a bumbling fool, crying and pounding on the shower wall.

  Five minutes into her tears, Milan thought, I have to get it together. She wiped her eyes with the back of one hand.

  Damn, I just wanna stop loving him. Now, at this moment.

  She stepped out of the shower and onto the bath mat. After she dried off and oiled her skin, out of habit she reached for one of Kendu’s oversized white T-shirts that he always left behind whenever he spent the night, and slipped it on.

  She climbed into bed. It felt like she carried boulders on her back and nails were being shot into her chest, leaving her no choice but to curl into a fetal position and cry until all she could see was blackness.

  Hours later, “Milan!” and a heavy pounding forced her out of sleep. She opened her eyes, and tears that she’d held hostage beneath her lids escaped down her cheeks. Just as she wiped them away, the pounding boomed through her apartment door. “Milan!”

  She looked at the clock: 3 a.m. Maybe she was dreaming.

  The pounding came again. It wasn’t a dream.

  “Milan!” It was Kendu.

  Reluctantly she eased out of bed and walked to the door.

  “Milan.”

  Open the door.

  She placed one hand on the knob. Twisted it.

  Don’t.

  She released the knob. The automatic locks clicked back into place.

  �
��I need to talk to you,” he said calmly on the other side of the door. “And I know you’re there.” He jiggled the knob. “This shit is getting old, Milan.” She could hear the mixture of anger and pain in his voice. “Milan.”

  Silence.

  “Fuck. It’s been two goddamn weeks, Milan. Shit is getting old. Just come home.”

  No.

  “Milan—”

  He is not entitled to my love. That shit is a privilege.

  “You’re not answering my calls.” She could hear his frustration. At any moment she knew he was going to scream. He continued. “You’re not letting me in.”

  Here it comes.

  “Damnit, Milan!” He pounded on the door. “Just let me talk to you!”

  Maybe I should …

  She placed one hand on the knob again. If you talk to him, if you see him, you know you’re going to give in. She snatched her hand away and pressed her back against the door.

  “Just hear me out,” Kendu said hopelessly.

  She sighed. He sounds like he means it, like he gets the shit this time. Like he’s changed.

  She turned back around and faced the door. Nobody changes in two fuckin’ weeks. Suddenly she was dizzy.

  I love him so much …

  “I love you so much, Milan,” he said.

  Everything wasn’t bad …

  “I miss you, baby.”

  But where was it going?

  “I just need to talk to you.”

  Nowhere.

  “I know you’re there.”

  And that’s the problem: He knows you’ll never go anywhere.

  “Milan.”

  I know I’ll regret this shit.

  “Milan.” He called her again.

  Suppose he leaves and never comes back?

  Yeah, suppose he does. Who gives a fuck? Stand. Up. For. Something! Just stop being a weak bitch for this motherfucker. Stop letting him play you. He’s been playing since 1988. When the hell is enough enough?

  I love him so fuckin’ much …

  “I’m sorry, baby.”

  Every apology doesn’t have to be accepted.

  Tears flooded Milan’s face as she leaned back against the door. She could feel the vibrations of his fist slamming into the door as he called her name over and over.