Ten minutes ago, Desmond was lusting over a beautiful young woman, defining her by the sum of her assets, her ass and breasts. Now he was expected to tend to his sister? What in the world could he offer Felicia in comfort and wisdom? He couldn’t imagine what would shake Felicia up so much that she would come down here from New York. Teary-eyed no less. He couldn’t ever remember Felicia brought to tears in all her eighteen years. She was the little girl who could take lumps better than the boys.
“Go on, Desmond,” Karen directed.
He turned to Karen, had forgotten she was still here as his mind ran amok. “I’m going.” He clasped his hands together, rubbed them, took a deep breath and went to move forward but then stopped. He turned back to Karen. “Check and make sure no one else is in there.”
“I’ve kept my eye on it, there’s no one in there except Felicia.”
“You positive?” he asked.
“Go!” Karen barked.
Desmond put his hand up in defense. “I’m going.”
He knocked as he entered. Felicia didn’t answer. “Felicia, it’s me, Desmond.” The sound of his voice was followed by an onslaught of his sister’s sniffles. He noticed only one of the stalls closed and went to that stall and tapped on the door. “Felicia, sweetheart, you want to open up so we can talk?”
She paused for a moment before unlatching the door. Desmond pushed it open softly. Felicia stood pressed against the wall, a heap of twisted, wet scraps of toilet paper at her feet. Her makeup had run, black mascara showing the trail her tears had taken down her face. She looked up at Desmond. The woman he’d imagined her to be was not present. In the innocence of her eyes and the vulnerability of her posture, he could only see an eighteen-year-old struggling to be older and wiser than her years.
“What’s the matter, Felicia?” He found himself rubbing his fingers along her hairline, caressing her face. To Felicia, the touch was as gentle as a breeze. She knew she’d made the right decision to come to Desmond instead of running home to her folks.
“Everything is screwed up,” she said.
Desmond desperately wanted to move from the cramped quarters of the stall, grab a seat at one of the tables outside in a quiet corner, but here would have to do. Felicia obviously wasn’t up for a move just yet. He asked Felicia, “Screwed up. Why? What’s happened?”
“I’m not going to slut my way to success,” Felicia said, shaking her head, defiance taking ahold of her. “I’m not sleeping with some slimy old creep to advance my career.”
Desmond’s voice rose. “Someone propositioned you?”
The tears started to flow again from Felicia’s eyes. All she could do was nod.
“Who was it, Felicia?”
“One of the agency photographers…Kenneth,” she sneered. “He works with getting our portfolios together to send out for job prospects. He hinted to me that he could increase my chances if I—” She stopped, hung her head for a moment. Wiped her eyes dry with her hands and blew her nose in a wad of toilet paper. Desmond had been awfully quiet, so she looked up at him. “Why are men such pigs?”
Desmond thought about Nora, about Karen, the dancer at the go-go bar with the mouthwatering ass and eye-popping nipples. He thought about the generous deposit he’d given the dancer, in the crease of her breasts, simply because she was built like a prizewinning Thoroughbred and jiggled like a pocket of change. Why were men such pigs?
“I don’t know, Felicia,” he replied honestly.
“If they’re not cheating on you, they’re demeaning you,” Felicia continued.
Desmond nodded despite himself.
“They make you question yourself,” Felicia said. She looked at Desmond, hard. “Nora, she’s all caught up with you. I know you probably have, but I have to ask anyway. You ever make her cry? Besides the wedding fiasco, I mean.”
Desmond sucked in air. “More times than I care to announce,” he admitted.
“How does that make you feel?”
“Ashamed.”
Felicia shook her head and looked away, tossing the thought of her brother’s issues, most men’s issues, aside. “Can I stay with you for a little while?” she asked. “I’m not ready to give up on modeling yet, but I’m not comfortable staying in New York right now, and I can’t go home to Mommy and Daddy.”
Desmond placed his hand on her shoulder. “What’s mine is yours.”
“Thanks. You’re the best,” Felicia said, falling into his arms.
Desmond thought about that go-go bar again, knowing that today was probably just the start of his visits there. Was he the best?
The meltdown with her brother was on Cydney’s mind as she sat down, crossed her legs and rummaged through the pile of dusty photo albums she’d just pulled from under her bed. She kept the albums in a cardboard box, next to a plastic box filled with shoes she never wore. As with the shoes, she’d considered trashing the albums several times, but never did. The phone rang as she picked up the first photo album and opened the cover. Cydney reached for the cordless, glad she’d had the foresight to bring it with her so she didn’t have to run and grab it.
“Hello?” she said. She eyed a picture of Slay and her running through the water of a fire hydrant when they were younger. She smiled, remembering how Slay had taken the blame for opening the hydrant when the police came down that block. In the picture, Cydney was soaked all the way through; Slay had a bit of water on his pants and shirt. In truth, Cydney had opened the hydrant herself and had been playing in the water for quite some time before her brother joined in.
“Cydney?” Stephon spoke from the phone receiver.
Cydney flipped the page. Ooh, there was a picture of Slay when he was about ten or eleven, in his Pop Warner football uniform. Everyone was just sure he’d at least go to college on a football scholarship. He was magic with a football. Some of the older men in the neighborhood said he had Gale Sayers’s moves and Jim Brown’s power, whoever those two were.
“Um…yes,” Cydney said as she continued turning pages.
“I don’t want to do the review for Cush,” Stephon said.
That caught Cydney’s attention. “What? Why?”
Jealousy or insecurity, take your pick. “I’d rather run a piece on that new restaurant in Atlantic Highlands. The Wharf.”
“The seafood place?”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s been getting tremendous buzz.”
“I thought our mission was to keep people of color informed about opportunities for cultural enhancement and entertainment here in New Jersey,” Cydney reminded him. “That is Urban Styles’s mission statement.”
“It is.” He cleared his throat. “But come on, you know niggas love theyselves some scrimp,” he said, failing to tickle Cydney’s funny bone.
“I’m doing Cush,” Cydney stated matter-of-factly. “You’re being ignorant and you know it.”
“This isn’t personal.”
“Right, Stephon.”
“I could make it personal,” he said. “I could mention how inappropriate I thought your behavior was that day we dined at Cush.”
“Inappropriate?”
“Highly. Making googly eyes at that stuffy Negro like some teenager.”
“Desmond Rucker is far from stuffy, Stephon.”
“Why you say that so certainly?” He swallowed loud enough for Cydney to hear on her end. “You were in his presence only a short while. Have you been back?”
Cydney started to say yes. “No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive, Stephon.”
“I’m divorcing Samantha, Cydney. I’m really going to do it.”
“I hope you don’t think there’s hope for us, that you’re thinking of divorcing her with some delusion of us being together.”
“Delusion?” His voice softened like a cried out child.
“I’m serious, Stephon. You and I are done.”
“You weren’t talking this definite before meeting Mr. Restaurateur,” Stephon said coldly.
; “Thought this wasn’t personal,” Cydney responded.
“You have been back.”
“I haven’t.”
“I can just tell you have,” Stephon said.
“Stephon, you—”
He cut her off with, “So how was it?”
“How was what?”
“That dick, Cydney, don’t play coy with me. I just know you fucked him. You never were very discriminating in that department.”
Cydney’s mouth opened into a capital-size O. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. So tell me. How was it?”
“I’ll have the review over to you by the end of the week,” Cydney fumed. “Read it and see just how good it was.” She clicked the phone off. It rang back almost immediately but she let the voice mail pick up the call.
Okay, Stephon, she thought, you want me to go back so bad. Then I’ll go back. She shut the photo album. There was no use in traveling down memory lane any longer. Slay was of the past. Stephon was of the past. Desmond Rucker…he was the future.
Slay pulled up to Kenya’s uncle’s house. He didn’t need directions or a house number because the old man had a front yard full of useless odds and ends. The township inspectors had cited him for zoning violations on quite a few occasions, but as of yet they hadn’t followed through with fines or jail time. Slay got out of his BMW, nodded to some people across the way that he knew and walked through the gate toward the house. The right portion of lawn was piled high with tires, hubcaps, and those gaudy Christmas ornaments that some people liked to stamp in their grass—a life-size Santa Claus, a sleigh and three reindeer. The left portion of lawn had a couple of old car engines, stacks and stacks of tied newspaper, a rusted stove, a refrigerator with the door lying on its top and garbage cans filled with leaves. Slay shook his head as he moved up the path to the front door. Kenya’s uncle was a regular old Fred Sanford.
Slay opened the screen door and rapped on the main door frame. He rapped again after his first knock went unanswered. He moved to the edge of the porch and leaned over the side. The truck was parked in the narrow drive. Old man had to be home. Slay went back to the door and rapped again. This time he heard footsteps. Somebody fumbled at the lock behind the door and opened it.
A young woman appeared just behind the screen. She was wrinkled from hard living instead of years; she couldn’t have been more than thirty-five or thirty-six, Slay estimated. The woman had her hair wrapped in a red bandanna and was missing a few teeth on her upper row. She stood in the screen, guarding the house with the fortitude of a Secret Service agent. “Yeah,” she said. Her voice had been deepened by years of smoking Newport cigarettes and worse.
Slay smiled. “Hey, I’m Slay. Kenya called ahead. I’m supposed to speak with her uncle.”
“Chuck?” the woman asked.
“Yeah,” Slay answered.
Recall flashed through her eyes. “’Bout the dogs, right?”
“Right, right,” Slay said.
Ms. Hard-Luck Life moved aside and opened the screen door. “Chuck is down in the basement. End of the hall, door on the right. Ain’t no light, so watch your step.”
“You his daughter?” Slay asked as he walked in.
The woman laughed. “I’ve been taking care of him since his wife passed. Not like no daughter, though.”
Slay looked at her and she winked. “Right, right,” he said. He moved down the hall and came to the door, opened it and walked in a crawl down the steps, making sure to hold to the rail for guidance. At the bottom, he saw that it led to another room, which was lighted. Slay walked through the opening. A large pit bull lurched for him and got pulled back by the chain around its neck. Slay stared at the dog and then turned to a smiling old man. Kenya’s Uncle Chuck.
“You the first person didn’t jump out they skin when Stinger jumped up like that,” the old man said.
“I was about to snap her neck,” Slay answered, “but that would be rude.”
The old man smiled. “Got a litter of four, you can have two of ’em.”
Slay looked over by the adult pit, noticed the four little puppies lying sleep at her underside. “The two black ones,” Slay said.
“What’s Kenya up to these days?” the old man asked as he moved around Slay.
“Taking care of those kids. Her man is locked up again.”
“Same ol’. Same ol’.”
“Yup.”
The old man turned and looked Slay over. “You a pretty-put together fella. I’ve been hearing your name since she was little. How you figure in Kenya’s life?”
Slay didn’t know how to respond. His relationship with her had never been defined even though it spanned the majority of his life. “We close” what he came up with.
The old man looked up, up where the girl with the missing teeth, weathered skin but young backbone and strong thighs was. “Nice to have someone you close to.”
Slay studied the old man for a second. He placed him in his early sixties. He was small in stature but had hands the size of baseball mitts. Strong hands. “Did Kenya mention to you I might have some work that’d interest you?”
The old man looked at Slay. “She did.”
“I see you have that truck outside. I want you to follow my sister around, just for a week or so, and tell me where she goes, what she does…who she sees.”
The old man shook his head. “I don’t like the sound of all that. I make it a habit not to be getting up into other folk’s business.”
“You know my mother,” Slay said. “Nancy Williams. She lives in Kenya’s building.”
The old man nodded.
“You seen her lately?” Slay asked.
Old man nodded again.
Slay forced himself to speak. “You seen what the drugs did to her, then. I’m concerned about my sister, Cydney. I think she might be headed in that same direction. I really need your help on this one. I’d follow her myself but I got a whip that screams out ‘look at me.’” Slay puffed his chest out. “A BMW quarter to eight.”
The old man nodded, unimpressed.
Slay frowned. “The drug trade ain’t no joke, sir. I don’t want my sister caught up in it.”
The old man looked up at the roof again, thinking of the young woman with the weathered skin and the missing teeth. “Cydney, you said your sister’s name is?”
“Yes, sir, Cydney Williams,” Slay said, smiling. Slay always was good at figuring a person’s weak spot and exploiting it for his own gain. Kenya’s uncle’s jaws tightened at the mention of drugs. He’d be Cydney’s second skin this next week.
Kenya’s Uncle Chuck nodded. “I’ll keep a watch on your Cydney.”
CHAPTER 9
This particular evening had drained almost all of the energy from Cydney’s overworked body. Her feet hurt even though she was wearing her Reebok cross trainers, and her hands were sore from writing. She’d just completed what was perhaps the most difficult test she’d ever taken. Her Critical Thought instructor, Professor Greenwood, pushed her harder than all of her other professors combined. His tests left the body sore and the mind exhausted. It was like some military strike gone bad and Cydney was the POW of his hostile exam.
Cydney settled onto the couch in the lounge and nursed a cold ginger ale and a small bag of honey-roasted peanuts. She was feeling a bit jittery—blood sugar low—and decided a quick snack would be wise before she took that drive on 18 South back home. A woman was on her cell phone across from Cydney, standing against the window of the lounge, whispering microwave-warming instructions to her husband. Cydney eavesdropped on the woman for a moment before a thought hit her. That woman had a husband—children, too, it appeared from what Cydney could make out. When that woman graduated she’d have someone cheering her on, someone to share in the moment with. Cydney had no one, unless you counted Faith and Victoria, and both of them would be reveling in their own graduations, with their own family and loved ones. Cydney had successfully moved from the confines of her old life only to find
that her new life had even greater challenges, different challenges to be sure, but still, challenges.
The woman standing by the window closed her cell phone and moved back toward the lounge area. She walked over to the little table where she left her pocketbook and textbooks and placed the cell phone in her purse. The woman, like Cydney, appeared exhausted. She sat down in her seat, closed her eyes and ran her fingers over her temples. Cydney heard the woman mumble, “It’s all prepared. Just remove the aluminum foil. Cover the dish with a paper towel. Put it in the microwave. Hit time. Punch in three minutes…voilà.” Cydney smiled. Okay, so this woman didn’t have the perfect life either, but she had more than Cydney.
Cydney was about to glance at her watch and see what was taking Faith and Victoria—the only friends she had at school or anywhere anymore—so long. But just then they came around the bend of wall. Faith looked as exhausted as Cydney. Victoria looked like she’d just stepped out of a rejuvenating hot shower. Cydney hated Victoria for always having her stuff together.
Faith scooted next to Cydney on the couch and plopped back against the softness of the cushions. “That man should be decertified,” Faith said. “That wasn’t a test. That was a darn master’s thesis.”
Cydney nodded in agreement. Faith definitely grew up more privileged than Cydney—father a judge, mother a big-shot accountant—but she had a down-to-earth quality that Cydney appreciated from the first moment they met. Faith had a nutmeg color to her, brown hair and a tight little dancer’s body. She’d been destined for ballet stardom until an ankle injury developed a tolerance for ice packs and hot-wrap treatments. After that disappointment, college was the logical option.
“I wish,” Victoria chimed in, “in the name of everything just and sacred, that that man would recognize the error of his ways, and cease, effective immediately.”
Faith and Cydney laughed. Victoria had a way of putting things that made laughter the only option. She was a diva among divas. On quite a few occasions it had been noted that Victoria bore a striking resemblance to Vanessa Williams. Every time, she waved off the comments. “I think not—isn’t she in her forties?” was her usual reply. Victoria had come to college after spending her early twenties traveling the world.
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