by Janice Sims
“That’s good to know,” Patrice said warmly. “You will be a joint godmother with Elle?”
“Just like she asked us to be for Ari,” Belana recalled.
“Yes,” Patrice said, “that way if something should happen to me and T.K., she’ll be doubly taken care of.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you and T.K.,” Belana said, “but yes, I would be proud to be her godmother. We’re referring to the baby as a girl. Do you already know the sex?”
“No, I can’t explain it, but I simply feel that it’s going to be a girl,” Patrice told her.
“We’ll see in… How many months?”
“I’m four months along according to my doctor,” Patrice supplied.
Belana counted the months in her head. “Then you’re going to have an April or a May baby.”
“The projected date is April 28th, but I was told the first baby is sometimes late.”
“Before you’re done, you’re going to be talking like Elle who was a repository of all things ‘baby’ when she was carrying Ari.”
“I know,” said Patrice. “I’m already making myself sick with my obsession with baby books. I must have every one that’s ever been published—You and Your Baby; What to Expect When You’re Expecting…name it and I have it. But T.K. is even weirder than I am. He’s convinced it’s a boy. He’s already bought season tickets to the Lakers for him.”
“Oh, that’s just pitiful,” said Belana, laughing.
“Isn’t it?”
“Did I hear my name?” T.K.’s voice suddenly said. “Hello, Belana. Still dating Nick?”
“Yes, I am,” Belana said, feigning indignation. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you usually would have kicked a guy to the curb by now,” T.K. told her, chuckling.
Belana wasn’t offended by her friend’s husband’s candor. He was right, her modus operandi used to be to have gotten rid of a guy by now. “I think I’ll keep this one,” she told him.
“Good for you!” said T.K. good-naturedly. “You know we love you, right?”
“I love you guys, too. I know you’re going to be great parents.” In a way, they had already proven to be great parents because T.K. and Patrice often took care of T.K.’s brother’s child. His brother had been killed a few years ago. But at the time of his death, his girlfriend had been carrying his child. T.K. took responsibility for his brother’s child and offered to support the girlfriend and the child. He and Patrice were helping to support them to this day.
T.K. put Patrice back on the line and she and Belana talked a bit longer about her impending motherhood, then Belana said good-night.
She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, smiling. One day, that could be her.
Chapter 11
December proved to be the busiest month of the year for both Belana and Nick. The first week of December found Belana being fitted for costumes, going through dress rehearsals, enduring day-long dance classes, while trying to find the time to be with Nick. Her schedule was so jam-packed that she barely had time to eat, but she still had to eat healthily and get sufficient calories because it was what she put in her body that fueled her strength to dance. She couldn’t afford to become sluggish now.
At the end of the first week in December, Nick had to fly to Los Angeles to put the finishing touches on a deal for one of his long-time clients who was being traded to another team. He’d left on Thursday and was to return on Saturday. However, as Belana was leaving a late rehearsal on Friday afternoon, her cell phone rang and it was Nick telling her he was going to be home that night instead of tomorrow. Belana was glad to hear it and instead of a quiet night home alone, she decided to surprise Nick when he got home with a meal cooked by her own hands. By that time in their relationship, they had exchanged keys so she didn’t worry about being able to get into his apartment. She had to time it just right, though. He said he would be home at around seven that evening. It was four now. She had to go home, get a change of clothing and then do the shopping for the items needed for the meal before heading over to Nick’s apartment. Luckily, they both lived on the Upper West Side. She hired a taxi and had the driver wait at every stop while she ran around like a crazy person.
Finally, at five-thirty, she was on the way to Nick’s place. She sat back on the seat in the cab and breathed a sigh of relief. A night alone with Nick was just what she needed to get her mind right for next week’s debut. She was wound tightly. The ballet critic for a major NYC paper was saying that if she managed to be magical in her role as Titania then A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be the hit of the season. It made Belana nervous when a critic singled her out like that when the success of a ballet depended on the entire company, not just the principal dancers. She understood why the critic had written the article in that manner, though, to garner publicity for her column. Everybody was looking for their big break.
They arrived at Nick’s building and Belana climbed out of the cab, pulling the packages and her overnight bag with her. She double-checked to make sure she hadn’t left anything on the cab’s seat, then closed the door and paid the driver.
“Thank you!”
A few minutes later she was standing at the door of Nick’s apartment. Wait a minute, she thought. She could have sworn she heard music being played inside. Maybe Nick had left the radio on. Some people left the radio on to fool thieves into believing the house was occupied instead of empty and ripe for the picking.
She shrugged it off and put the key in the keyhole. She had set the heavier grocery bag on the floor while she opened the door. She propped the door open and bent and picked up the heavy bag then gathered the rest of her packages in her arms.
She walked into the foyer and set the bags on the foyer table. She heard a crash in the direction of the living room, like the sound of glass hitting the hardwood floor.
Fear prickled her spine. There could be someone in here. She searched frantically for something to protect herself with. She had a small container of pepper spray in her shoulder bag. She quickly found it and twisted the cap off, and began to slowly advance farther into the apartment, her finger poised over the trigger, ready to spray whoever jumped out at her. The pale evening light that lit the apartment spilled on to the floor, casting weird shadows. On the floor next to the sofa was a broken lamp. That must have been the sound of breaking glass that she’d earlier heard.
Suddenly, a young black man stepped into her line of sight, holding his hands up to show her he didn’t have a weapon, no doubt. He was tall and muscular and more disturbing than his size was the fact that he was barechested and barefooted. All he had on was a pair of jeans.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Belana yelled. She walked forward, he moved backward. “Speak up,” she shouted, “or I’m going to spray you.” She had never had a reason to use the pepper spray. She had been carrying it around for three years or more. The darn thing might malfunction when she hit the nozzle and spray her instead of the guy. He didn’t say a word, just kept looking behind him. Belana worried that he might not be alone. He could have an accomplice waiting to jump out and grab her while she was distracted by the half-naked guy.
She put her finger on the trigger anyway and pointed it at him. “I’m gonna count to three: one, two…three!”
She pressed the trigger and a stream of liquid shot into the guy’s face. He screamed and began rubbing at his eyes and doing a drunken dance around the room that had him blindly crashing into furniture and howling anew when he stubbed his toe.
Belana continued to spray. Was there such a thing as too much pepper spray when someone was threatening your life?
“Belana, stop!” yelled a feminine voice.
Belana jerked to the right. Running from the direction of the hallway was Nona.
She lowered the almost empty pepper spray canister. “Nona, what are you doing here? Don’t get close to that guy. What are you doing?”
Nona was kneeling next to the guy and speaking consolingly to
him.
Belana got the picture then. Nona, who also had a key to her father’s apartment, had taken advantage of her father being out of town to bring her boy here for an afternoon tryst. Belana didn’t like to think about a sixteen-year-old girl involved in a tryst, but she wasn’t blind.
Nona glared up at her. “He’s my boyfriend, okay? We just wanted to go someplace where we could be alone.”
Belana put down the canister and hurried into the kitchen to wet a towel. She returned and handed the towel to Nona. “Here, hold this over his eyes. I’ll call a cab and we’ll take him to the emergency room. I hear they can neutralize the chemicals in pepper spray.”
Nona snatched the towel from her grasp. “You’re crazy, you know that? What are you doing here? Left something here the last time you spent the night?”
She and Nick had never spent the night here. But that wasn’t any of Nona’s business. “Don’t try to make this about me,” Belana told her, not caring that the girl was fixing her with a hateful glare. “You’re only sixteen. You shouldn’t be bringing guys back to your house. Do you know how dangerous that could be? Girls have been killed when they trusted the wrong guy!”
“I told you, he’s my boyfriend!”
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”
“You don’t know everything about me, just like I don’t know everything about you!”
“Has your dad met this guy?”
Nona cut her eyes at her. Belana knew then that Nick hadn’t met him and from the looks of things Nona had not planned on introducing them anytime soon.
“How old is he?”
“Can you get me to the emergency room before you start discussing my vital statistics?” asked the guy who sounded like he was in a lot of pain.
Stuff works, thought Belana facetiously. If he had spoken up she wouldn’t have sprayed him. “Look, I’m sorry, but until you tell me how old you are, we aren’t going anywhere.”
“Belana, you’re not my mother and you can’t hold us prisoner. We’re going,” said Nona, yanking on the guy’s arm. He staggered to his feet and Nona began guiding him to the door.
“Okay,” said Belana, blocking their way, “I can’t make you stay but your father is going to be here in about an hour and I’m not letting you out of my sight until he gets here.”
Nona’s eyes stretched in panic. “Oh, my God, Vincent, I’m so sorry I talked you into this. My dad is going to kill us!”
“You talked him into it?” Belana said, incredulous.
“All the girls I hang with have experience,” Nona cried in her defense. “I’m the only one who doesn’t. I just wanted to do it and get it over with.”
“Just so you’d fit in?” Belana asked. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
“I am smart,” said Nona. “I picked a guy who also has no experience and we were going to use condoms.”
“Nona, if you’re gonna tell everybody I’m a geek, I wish you’d do it in a cab on the way to the hospital,” said Vincent.
Belana breathed a sigh of relief. Nona had said “going to,” which could mean they hadn’t done anything yet. She had caught them before they’d done the deed.
“He’s right, let’s go,” Belana conceded. “But I’m calling your dad and telling him where to meet us.”
“All right,” Nona said. “I can’t let Vincent suffer. But I hate you for this, Belana. I’ll never forgive you for breaking in here like a crazed superhero and spoiling everything.”
“I’ll just have to tolerate your hating me,” Belana told her. “Because I love you and I’m not going stand aside while you make the biggest mistake of your life. Now help him get dressed so we can get out of here.”
A short while later, Vincent was dressed and Belana pulled the door closed after them and made sure it was locked.
They were in the hallway now moving swiftly with Vincent between them toward the elevator. “I can’t understand you,” Belana said. “If you were curious about sex why didn’t you talk to your dad or your grandmother? Either one would have listened and tried to offer suggestions on how to survive high school without compromising your virtue.”
“A girl’s virtue is not worth much these days,” Nona told her. “Not when you’re ridiculed every day because you’re different.”
“I hate this,” Belana complained passionately as she pressed the down button on the panel in the elevator. She was glad they were alone because what she had to say was for Nona’s and Vincent’s ears only. “This is a screwed-up society if being a virgin is now considered a bad thing to be. Have you ever thought that misery loves company? They’re trying to make you like them because they will feel so much better about themselves when everybody’s in the same boat. Dare to be different! You don’t have to kowtow under peer pressure.”
“It’s my choice,” Nona insisted. “And Vincent was ready, too. Look at him. He’s a hottie, but a hottie with no experience. Do you know how humiliating it is for him to deal with guys in the locker room? They call him queer because he’s still a virgin. It’s hell.”
“It’s hell,” Vincent agreed. “Hey, I didn’t know you thought I was a hottie.”
“That’s beside the point,” Nona said. She looked at Belana. “How can you judge us? You and Daddy aren’t platonic friends.”
“No, and we’re not sixteen, either. We’re way past the age of consent. But I’m not going to discuss our relationship right now. We’re talking about you. Your dad is trying his best to be a good father, and you go behind his back and take a guy to your home when he’s out of town. How do you think he’s going to react to that?”
“He’s going to be furious,” said Nona. “He would be furious anyway when he found out I was sexually active.”
“But you’re not.”
“What?”
“Sexually active.”
“No, you ruined that, remember?”
“Just checking.”
Nona smiled in spite of herself. “You know, you can be very annoying when you want to be.”
“Thank you,” Belana said as though her insult were a compliment.
The elevator doors slid open and they were about to step off the conveyance when Nick strode through the entrance.
“I thought you said an hour,” Nona said, glaring at Belana.
“He was quicker than I thought he would be,” Belana said, and then she steeled herself for the coming conflagration.
Nick was weary from his trip. All he wanted was a hot bath, a hot meal, and Belana lying next to him in bed. He was looking down and didn’t see what was unfolding before him at first. Then he heard a gasp and wondered why the sound was vaguely familiar to him. He looked up and saw his daughter holding on to a big, muscular guy holding a towel over his eyes, and Belana on the other side, looking like a deer caught in headlights. His heart seemed to plummet to the pit of his stomach. He knew instinctively that something was terribly wrong.
They stepped off the elevator, both of them smiling like fools, fools caught red-handed. He couldn’t see whether the guy was chagrined at his appearance as well because his face was obscured by the towel. Nick controlled the anger that was bubbling up. He stood in front of them, one hand gripping his overnight bag, the other balled into a fist.
“What do we have here?” he asked calmly.
Belana and Nona tried to talk simultaneously, which came out sounding like someone spinning a record backwards. Irritated by their performance, the muscles worked in his strong jaw. “One at a time,” he instructed.
“Belana sprayed Vincent in the eyes with pepper spray when she mistakenly took him for a thief,” Nona said hurriedly.
Nick let that sink in. Then he turned to Belana. “I didn’t know you would be here,” he said. He didn’t know his daughter would be here, either, but he would get to that later.
“I was going to surprise you with a meal,” Belana said. She started to say more, but he held up his hand, stopping her. What she had said made sense to him. He ha
d phoned and told her he would be coming home early. It would have been a nice surprise to find her in his place when he’d gotten there. Nona on the other hand had not known he was coming home early. She was supposed to be in Harlem at his mother’s house, or out with her friends on a Friday evening. She wasn’t supposed to be on the Upper West Side.
Nick set his bag down and regarded his daughter. “You didn’t know I was coming home. How did you happen to be here the same time as Belana? Did she phone you and tell you I was coming home early?”
“No, Daddy,” said Nona, attempting a weak smile.
“Then it stands to reason that Belana didn’t know you were here.”
“No, she didn’t, Daddy.”
“Who’s the guy?”
“He’s a friend from school, Vincent Hoynes.”
“What is Vincent doing with you?”
“We’re dating,” Nona said, looking down.
“You can’t date yet. You can only go on group dates,” Nick stated.
“I know,” Nona said. “I broke the rules, I’m sorry.”
“How far did you go in breaking the rules?” Nick wanted to know. “Why did Belana feel it necessary to spray a teen boy in the eyes with pepper spray? Why is his shirt on crooked? And his shoes untied?” he shouted.
Belana trembled, let alone Nona. She tried to appeal to his humanity. “Nick, Vincent’s in pain. I don’t know how bad that stuff is, it could lead to a permanent injury and I don’t want that on my conscience. Let’s get him to the hospital and we can continue your line of questioning later, please?” she pleaded.
Nick relented. “Get my bag, Nona,” he ordered his daughter as he took charge of Vincent who, though nearly as tall as he was, flinched when he grabbed him.
Two hours later, Belana, Nick and Nona were still waiting for Vincent to return. A nurse had taken him away, assuring them that they indeed could help him. They apparently saw a lot of patients like him.
“Yeah,” Nona had said after the nurse had led Vincent away, “there are probably a lot of crazy women pepper spraying innocent people.” She gave Belana a withering glance.
