Magic Touch

by Treasure Hernandez

  Simmy and her grandmother stood there sobbing together for what seemed like an eternity. It seemed like a lifetime had passed before they’d finally gathered a few of Simmy’s things. There wasn’t much left, but they grabbed what they could: her favorite doll, some of her clothes, and a locket her father had given her.

  By the time Marcus had pulled away from the house, Simmy’s eyes were swollen, and her throat was sore. The house became smaller and smaller as her uncle drove farther down the street. Simone knew it would probably be the last time she’d ever see her house again.

  “Wait! Stop! Stop the car!” she yelled out.

  “We have to go, Simmy. There’s nothing left therefor you,” her uncle explained.

  “I can’t go! I don’t want to go! Stop the car! Please stop! Stop!”

  “Stop! Please stop!” Simmy was flailing her arms wildly.

  “Hey, hey! It’s okay. Deep breaths.”

  Simmy opened her eyes and was face to face with a tan lady with honey blond hair. Simmy saw kindness in her eyes.

  “Deep breaths, sweetie. Breathe in, and breathe out.”

  Simmy felt herself calming down. The lady’s voice was peaceful and soothing. She realized she was in an ambulance. The back doors to the ambulance were open, and she could still see all of the commotion going on outside of the building.

  “You passed out, and my partner carried you in here. You must have been having quite a dream.” The lady smiled at Simmy, “I’m Jennifer. How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

  “I’m feeling okay,” Simmy replied. Her throat felt sore, probably from the screaming and crying she was doing before she passed out. She blinked away the horrible memories and hugged herself tightly. “Thank you for helping me, Jennifer. I really need to get going, though.”

  “Oh, sweetie, you really shouldn’t get up just yet. Plus, I need your information so I can make a report for you.”

  “No, no, I don’t need a report. Thank you. I must get going, or my mom will be worried sick about me,” she lied.

  The paramedic could tell something was up. “Look, sweetie, I don’t know who you are or even what your name is, but something tells me that you have something to do with the mess going on over here with that drug bust. Is that your friend, or boyfriend who just got picked up?”

  Simmy was somewhat listening to the paramedic. Her eyes were set on the van holding Kyan. She noticed that it was filled with more guys, some of whom Simmy recognized as Kyan’s people.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Jennifer.” Simmy locked eyes with the paramedic.

  “That’s all right. This must be hard on you.” She looked around to make sure no one was listening to their conversation before speaking again. “Not that you asked for my advice, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. You seem like a nice young lady, and you should be careful not to get caught up in all that mess. Now, I’m going to go grab something from my first aid kit that’s over there by the tree. If you’re not here when I get back, then I will have nothing to report to the police when they come.” Jennifer winked at Simmy and walked over to the tree just as she had said she would.

  Simmy got the hint and jumped out of the ambulance and ran without looking back. She ran until she was blocks away from Kyan’s building. She was out of breath from running, and her heart was racing. She looked around trying to decide which direction to go in. She had no clue where to go from here.

  What now? she asked herself. What the fuck am I going to do now?

  Chapter 10

  Out in the World

  Simmy couldn’t stop crying as she sat across from Kyan in the Rikers Island visit room, almost a week to the day after his arrest. She had found out that twelve of Kyan’s people had been arrested the same day he was picked up. She couldn’t care less about them, though. All she cared about was Kyan.

  He put his hands on top of hers for the few seconds of physical contact allowed by the correction officers. “Shh. Don’t cry, baby. It’s all going to work out. Just trust me on this,” Kyan comforted her, smiling although Simmy could see that it was a struggle.

  She shook her head in despair. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. It’s all over the newspapers, Kyan,” Simmy cried, looking across the table at him. He averted his eyes like it was too hard to look at her.

  “They’re saying it’s like some big conspiracy you’re caught up in and that people were locked up in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Like, twenty other people. They wrote something about RICO charges and criminal enterprises and black mafia groups. They said it was like some big drug network and that everybody is looking at a lot of time,” Simmy said, her voice rising and falling with grief.

  Kyan sighed. “Don’t believe all that, Simone. I’ma be a’ight. They putting all that stuff out there in the media trying to scare people into snitching. That’s all a mind game being played by the cops using the papers. That shit ain’t gonna work. Our team is pretty solid. We have a plan for if this shit ever happened. Plus, we ain’t do shit,” Kyan said firmly. He said the end of his sentence a little louder hoping that the undercover officers the Department of Corrections usually planted in the visit rooms to listen in on inmates would hear his words, “We ain’t do shit.”

  “What about a lawyer? Money? Your place? Do you need—”

  Kyan put his hand up and smiled again. “Listen, baby. Didn’t I just say for you to trust me? I haven’t ever led you wrong. I got this. I’m good on all those fronts. I got people taking care of all of that. I want you to go see my man, the paper I gave you. He got it all covered.” Kyan nodded toward her bag where she’d dropped his note.

  Understanding washed over Simmy’s expression. She wiped her tears away. She felt a little better when Kyan said he had people taking care of everything. She wished Jayla had been as prepared as Kyan was.

  “My dude got you for a little bit. I want you to take what he gives you. Continue going to school, and make something good out of that beautiful mind of yours,” Kyan said. “Plus, I’ma be home in a flash to pick up right where we left off.”

  Simmy started crying again. She couldn’t even speak. She could see that he was trying to hold on to his optimism but, to her, something about his words and his tone seemed so final. It was like he knew something that she didn’t know.

  “When? When will you be home, Kyan?” Simmy cried.

  “Soon. All I’m asking for is your loyalty, Simone. While you out in the world, just make sure you do the little things: take my calls, visit me until I get out of this, and check in on my moms and brothers, hit them off with some of what my man give you. I hear too many horror stories of dudes being abandoned in these situations. Just promise me you won’t—”

  “I won’t,” Simmy interrupted him. “I promise I won’t abandon you. I promise on everything I love, Kyan. As long as I have breath in my body, I will be here for you.”

  * * *

  Simmy waited five days and still hadn’t heard anything back from Kyan’s man, Doc. According to Kyan, Doc had the information Simmy needed to access Kyan’s emergency stash, which, Kyan had said, in total should’ve been around a hundred stacks in several different places. Doc also had the information about the lawyer and all Simmy was supposed to do was take some of the cash and get it to the lawyer.

  Simmy picked up the burner phone she’d purchased like Kyan had instructed, and she dialed Doc’s number, for what seemed like the one hundredth time that week. Simmy took the phone from her ear and crinkled her face when an automated message said, “The number or code you’ve dialed is no longer in service.”

  “Fuck!” Simmy screamed, throwing her burner phone into the wall in Jayla’s guestroom. “This dude got rid of his phone. He probably took Ky’s money and bounced. How the hell am I supposed to find him now? I don’t even know his real name,” Simmy spoke out loud to herself. She felt like she was losing her mind. She paced in circles. Her eyes landed on the bed where a rent notice for the apartment, several more lawyers’ names for Jayla, and Ja
yla’s commissary information lay spread out. Simmy lifted her hands to her head at either side and squeezed her scalp. She had to think hard and fast.

  “I can’t keep sitting around here like this. I have to make some money,” she grumbled, pacing again. With no Jayla and no Kyan, Simmy quickly realized that she’d been totally dependent on others to survive all of her life. She had gone from depending on her parents to Mummy Pat, to Jayla, and then to Kyan, but never on herself. Simmy felt like a failure in every sense of the word. Her shoulders slumped, and she hung her head. She was three weeks away from her eighteenth birthday, and it was time she grew up and started acting like an independent adult. She hadn’t listened to Jayla when she had told her to save money, either. Simmy now regretted not having saved. In her defense, though, she didn’t think she’d ever be in a position where she would need to rely on emergency money. Boy, was she wrong.

  Simmy stormed out of the guestroom and into Jayla’s bedroom. She yanked open Jayla’s nightstand drawer and began frantically rummaging through it. Her hand landed on a Baggie. Simmy paused and picked it up. She held it up in front of her face and shook her head. “This fucking girl was really doing this shit on a regular,” Simmy grumbled. She tossed the cocaine into the small garbage pail next to Jayla’s bed. Then she rushed over and started searching through the nightstand on the other side of the bed and then Jayla’s dresser.

  “Argh!” Simmy yelled, frustrated when she didn’t find any money. She walked over to the mirror connected to Jayla’s dresser and looked at her reflection. She looked a mess. She had dark rings cropping up under her eyes, and her hair was in desperate need of a wash and set. Simmy stared at herself for a few seconds until something caught her eye. Stuck in the side of the mirror was a card. Simmy snatched it down and read it out loud.

  “Luxury Babe High-end Consignment.” Simmy flipped the card over. It read on the back of it: SEE CASSANDRA FOR PRICING. Simmy’s heart jerked.

  “This has to be who Jayla gets the list from. Cassandra is the one who pays for the stuff after we get it. She owns a consignment shop where she sells it. Makes perfect fucking sense,” Simmy said to herself.

  She rushed back into the guestroom and slid on her jeans, a Givenchy sweatshirt, and her Hunter tall rubber snow boots. She grabbed Jayla’s long down North Face coat and her favorite of Jayla’s Chanel boy bags.

  Satisfied she looked the part, Simmy rushed out of the apartment. She was headed to see Cassandra. Simmy wanted her to know that she would be taking Jayla’s place for a while.

  * * *

  Simmy was utterly shocked to find that Cassandra was a white woman. When the chubby, cherub-faced, Pillsbury Dough-woman wobbled from the back of the small store to meet her, Simmy couldn’t get her mouth to close all the way. She even had to blink a few times to make sure she was seeing correctly. Simmy had assumed, based on the list requests, that Cassandra was some black chick who sold the items hot in the hood to all the girls and guys who wanted to be fly but couldn’t really afford it.

  “Hi. I’m Simone,” Simmy introduced herself, and she extended her hand, but Cassandra didn’t shake it. From the minute Cassandra laid eyes on Simmy, she seemed overly suspicious and cautious of her, like she suspected Simmy of being an undercover cop or a stick-up kid.

  “So, tell me this again, Jayla sent you here to see me? Is that what you said when you called earlier?” Cassandra said, rubbing her double chin, while her eyes and eyebrows moved up and down seemingly on their own.

  Simmy shifted her weight from one foot to the other and shoved her sweaty palms deep into the pockets of Jayla’s down coat. It didn’t matter how cold it was outside, Simmy’s entire body was burning hot at that moment. “Um, yeah. She’s, um . . . Jayla is a little sick. So that’s why, um, she couldn’t . . . I mean, she sent me. But, she said . . .” Simmy stuttered so badly even she couldn’t keep track of what she was trying to say. She was kicking herself inside, knowing she sounded like a complete idiot. She’d always been a terrible liar, especially without Jayla there like usual to feed her the lines she needed to say.

  “I don’t do business with anyone but Jayla,” Cassandra said flatly, set to turn her back on Simmy.

  “Wait!” Simmy tightly grabbed Cassandra’s thick, chunky arm, her fingers sinking into the woman’s soft, meaty flesh. “Please. Please just hear me out.” Simmy softened her tone, realizing from the look of terror on the woman’s face what she’d done. Simmy quickly snatched her hand back and released her grip on Cassandra’s arm.

  “I’m sorry,” Simmy said, putting her hands up to show she didn’t mean any harm. “Listen. I’m really sorry. But, please just hear me out,” Simmy said, lowering her eyes to her wringing hands. She swallowed hard. “You’re right to be suspicious. And, you’re right; Jayla didn’t send me. Well, not exactly,” Simmy said, coming clean.

  Cassandra made a grunting nose and twisted her lips as if to say, “I knew it.”

  “But, Jayla is my cousin. That’s the truth. And, I’ve been working with her. For months now. I was the one helping her get the stuff off the lists. The lists you give her with the orders. I don’t think she would’ve been able to fill such big orders without me. I’m really good. I learned everything I know from Jayla.”

  Cassandra’s scowl eased a bit, and one of her eyebrows went up. She stepped a few paces closer to Simmy like she wanted to hear more.

  “The truth is, Jayla got locked up in New Jersey almost two months ago, and I need to work. I need to make money to help her get a lawyer and to keep her apartment until she gets out,” Simmy said, choosing full disclosure over the deceit that had gotten her nowhere in the beginning. “I mean, I could go out there and boost the stuff. I’m just as good at it as Jayla, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about fencing it for cash. I don’t need clothes, right now. I need cash. If you give me a chance, you will see. I can make good on my word.”

  “I don’t know,” Cassandra said tentatively. “You know, my lists are not easy. It’s always the requests of some of my most well-off customers that I would give to Jayla. Most of what they request is high end, very high end,” Cassandra said. “Anything else would be a waste of my time. I don’t deal in petty stuff because it doesn’t pay well. And, if the consignment customers don’t pay me well, then I damn sure can’t pay you well.”

  Simmy shook her head vigorously. “That’s all I get when I go out there. All high end. All big names. Just like Jayla. I swear,” she agreed, a bit too excited.

  Cassandra seemed to contemplate what Simmy was saying. She sighed so hard, Simmy thought she’d blow her down.

  “I’ll give you this one chance to see how you do. But, if you don’t deliver you’ll be all out of chances with me. I definitely don’t do second chances,” Cassandra said firmly.

  “I will deliver. I promise you I’ll deliver and you will be very satisfied,” Simmy swore, making a commitment even she wasn’t sure she could keep.

  Chapter 11

  Stranger of Savior

  Simmy got off the Long Island Railroad and caught an Uber to the Roosevelt Field Mall. It was the best she could do to get out there. She didn’t have a license to rent a car and hike it all the way to Connecticut or Delaware, and she’d been too spooked to return to Short Hills, New Jersey. Jayla had taken Simmy to Roosevelt Field the very first time she’d taken her shopping. They hadn’t stolen anything that day, but Simmy remembered the mall having nice high-end stuff, since she’d bought a bunch of things that trip.

  “Can you be back around here in about an hour?” Simmy asked her Uber driver. “I’ll pay extra for a ride out to Brooklyn. Whatever your price.”

  The driver assured Simmy that he could pick her back up in an hour, but he’d have to go off the call so it would be a few extra dollars. Simmy agreed. She was down to the last $1,500 of Jayla’s money, all of which she had in a knot in her Gucci bag, just like Jayla had taught her.

  “Just in case any of those store clerk bitches try to front on you, yo
u can pull this out and make them feel like shit for hawking you. Once they see you really do have money, they’ll leave you alone and run away, too scared they might get pulled up for harassing a legit, paying customer. I’ve had to set more than a few bitches straight in my time doing this.” Jayla’s exact words played in Simmy’s head. She was ready.

  Simmy exited the Uber car with her dark Chanel shades on, her head draped with a monogram Louis Vuitton scarf, and her kitted-out booster bags with the shoeboxes and demagnetizer she needed for the store alarms. She’d chosen a Gucci tote bag, just in case she came across something small she could slip into it.

  Simmy had nearly memorized Cassandra’s list: two Gucci ghost T-shirts, two pair of Christian Louboutin So Kates, any color, and a Valentino rock-stud clutch. The list seemed easy enough. Cassandra had said she wanted to start Simmy out with a short list to see how she’d do.

  As soon as Simmy walked into Neiman Marcus, she went to work. She didn’t have time to waste. Simmy walked into the Gucci section for the T-shirt first. She spent a little time browsing the handbags, then the shoes, before she traveled over to the clothes.

  “Can I see these?” Simmy had summoned the salesgirl. She looked at Simmy’s expensive clothes, her bag, and shades, and smiled at Simmy.

  “Sure. They are our hottest new item,” the salesgirl said as she rushed over to unlock the chain alarm that ran through the shirts and connected them to the rack. Simmy examined the shirts for a few minutes and, as soon as the salesgirl got distracted by another customer—a pretty girl Simmy couldn’t help but notice—Simmy slipped the shirts into her bags and headed out of that section of the store.

  Simmy shivered once she was in the clear. She couldn’t lie; a funny feeling came over her at how easy it was to get those shirts. Almost too easy. It seemed like the pretty girl had just materialized out of nowhere to distract the salesclerk, just like Simmy and Jayla would’ve planned to do it. Simmy shook off the feeling. Maybe it was just a very lucky coincidence, she told herself. Simmy moved through the rest of the store on a mission.