Hotlanta

by Mitzi Miller

  Sydney’s first instinct was to pick up the nearest phone and call her Aunt Lorraine’s house. Then she would definitely know who Dice’s friends were back in the day. But placing a call on the Duke landline was too risky. Since Sydney was only allowed to make school-related calls, Keisha was monitoring all outgoing numbers on the landline like a hawk. Sydney then considered waiting till the morning to ask Marcus to borrow his car again, but in addition to the chemistry exam making tomorrow’s attendance mandatory, Marcus was slightly suspicious of how long she’d been gone the last time she borrowed his car. He kept insinuating that he didn’t necessarily believe her story about going home for note cards. At her wit’s end, Sydney was ready to throw herself back on the bed like a five-year-old having a temper tantrum when she remembered the old Christmas photo.

  While that might be one of the few mementos from their earlier childhood that Mrs. Duke actually allowed her to display in the house, there had to be more stuff in the storage boxes downstairs in the basement. If there was anything to be learned about her family’s past, it was somewhere in the boxes. Filled with renewed hope, Sydney quickly slipped on her fuzzy slippers and headed downstairs.

  “What would you like for dinner, Ms. Sydney?” Edwina asked as Sydney passed through the kitchen on her way to the door beside the pantry that concealed the basement staircase.

  “Oh, I’m not hungry, Edwina,” Sydney said, barely pausing to flip the light switch as she headed down the steps.

  “Okay. Do you need any help looking for something down there, miss?” Edwina inquired as she wiped down the already immaculate stovetop.

  “It’s okay, I’m good,” Sydney called back up from the foot of the stairs. For years, Altimus had been threatening to clear everything out and renovate the basement into a game and workout room for himself. “Pay attention, pay attention,” Sydney mumbled as she looked around the huge and cluttered space. Sydney noticed her old ten-speed with the same flat tire that put it out of commission over seven years ago next to a pair of beat-up roller skates; a pile of board games; lots of old luggage sets; the huge teddy bears that Altimus had won each of the girls at the State Fair so many years ago; and garbage bags full of clothes that were probably Salvation Army bound at some point.

  Sydney slowly walked around the perimeter of the basement. She spotted an old bag of kitty litter from the time Lauren rescued a stray kitten. Li’l Tigger barely lived in the house for forty-eight hours before Keisha caught him inside her closet scratching her full-length llama-hair sweater. She promptly dropped the poor thing off at the nearest no-kill shelter.

  Moving along slowly, Sydney passed an old VCR with countless Billy Blank’s Tae Bo tapes piled on top. Next to that was a dusty stationary bike and small, green plastic dumbbell weights from Keisha’s fanatical healthy-living stage. Sydney smiled slightly as she remembered the horrible faces her mom used to make as she forced herself to drink a rawegg-and-protein shake every morning.

  Finally, a small pile of dusty brown moving boxes behind several old metal lawn chairs and a huge beach umbrella caught Sydney’s attention. She immediately picked her way through and pulled the boxes out into the limited free space. From the looks of the layers of dust, half of the boxes had remained completely untouched since the day they moved into this house.

  Sydney struggled to open the first box. Using the edge of a stray wire hanger she found on the floor, she was able to tear the masking tape that securely held the edges. When she finally pulled back the flaps, a faded red-and-white bib with a huge red-and-black ladybug embroidered on the corner was the first item to emerge. Sydney fought to hold back the tears as she stroked the edges of the ancient item. Pulling herself together, she continued to dig through to the bottom of the box. There were a whole bunch of baby clothes but no concrete clues. Stashing the bib in the back pocket of her Joe’s Jeans, Sydney quickly threw the rest of the stuff back in and closed the lids. “One down and three to go,” she grunted, still feeling hopeful as she ripped open the tape on the next box.

  The second box was filled with Mrs. Duke’s belongings. An old-school pair of Lee jeans with the big brown logo patch on the back sat at the very top of the meticulously folded pile. Sydney snorted at the idea of Keisha’s pretentious butt squeezing into the pair of cheesy acid-washed jeans. As she delved deeper, Sydney found more outdated clothes and shoes, including a pair of white Keds with pink laces. Just before she reached the bottom, her hand hit what felt like an old leather-bound journal. After struggling to pull it out from under the weight of the clothes, Sydney anxiously opened it to the middle pages. Lo and behold, staring right back at her was a huge 9 x 11 photo of the twins with Keisha and Dice taken at the local swap meet. “Wow,” she breathed softly.

  Sydney reached back in the box to make sure that there weren’t any more albums in the bottom and closed it back up. Feeling like she may have found what she was looking for, Sydney carefully pushed all the boxes back to the corner and placed everything back in its prior position as best she could. Then she hauled butt outta there.

  “You find everything you need, Ms. Sydney?” Edwina asked as Sydney hurriedly closed the staircase door behind her.

  “Mmm-hmm, I’m good, thanks. I’m just gonna go do some studying,” she reassured the old lady as she headed back to the safe confines of her room.

  Taking the steps two at a time, Sydney’s heart pounded painfully by the time she reached her bedroom. She considered hiding out in her walk-in closet but settled on her bathroom—it was the only door in the house the girls were allowed to close without their paranoid mother busting in like a federal agent. Just to be safe, Sydney grabbed her chemistry book and placed it on her bed as a decoy. Then she took a deep breath for courage and headed into the bathroom.

  This time Sydney started from the very beginning. There were several pictures of a very pregnant Keisha at her baby shower, surrounded by a lot of women. The only person Sydney recognized was her Aunt Lorraine. She couldn’t believe how many people her mother, the ultimate loner, used to be cool with. Next there were pictures of Keisha and Dice with the girls shortly after the delivery. Both of her parents looked exhausted but overjoyed. Even though the photo was taken no more than a few minutes after the delivery, Keisha still managed to rock a huge pair of gold hoops and hot-pink lipstick. Sydney smirked as she imagined her mother demanding time to freshen up before having the photo taken.

  Sydney flipped slowly through countless pages of the girls as newborns and toddlers wearing various matching outfits, including those annoying frilly underpants that mothers with too much time on their hands tend to put on their little girls. With each page turn, Sydney longed for the years before they moved into the big house, when her real family was still intact and the twins were still totally inseparable. She took her time and slowly examined each photo, trying desperately to memorize each one.

  Sydney was almost three-quarters of the way through when a candid shot of her father and a friend relaxing on the red leather couch, drinking Heinekens, and watching the television caught her attention. Where do I know this guy from? she wondered as she pulled the grainy photo from the page to get a better look. Unable to put her finger on the answer, she replaced the photo and kept flipping. She flipped through several more pages filled with candid pictures of Keisha, her grandparents, and a guy who looked so much like Keisha, Sydney just assumed it was her Uncle Laurence. And then there were a bunch of Dice and the familiar-looking stranger. In one, the tall, dark stranger rocked a serious Jheri curl and posed with Dice in front of a pimped-out black Cadillac with gold rims. They were wearing the exact same outfit from head to toe. “I know him,” she muttered under her breath as she tried to imagine what the two men might have been about to get into when the photo was taken.

  Suddenly, Sydney heard the front door slam. Startled, she jumped up from her perch on the closed toilet and a large professional photo fell out from the back page. “Stop! You play too much, Altimus,” Lauren whined dramatically as Sydne
y listened to the group heading up the stairs. She quickly bent down to retrieve the picture. However, as soon as she turned it over she froze. It was her parents’ official wedding photo: Keisha, Dice, and their entire twelve-person bridal party in all their tacky eighties fashion glory. Once again, the tall, dark stranger was standing right next to Dice. But this time, thanks to the clarity of a professional photo, it was perfectly clear: The stranger—and best man—was Altimus.

  Sydney’s heartbeat roared in her ears. “Oh, my God…” she wheezed. She didn’t know whether to run, hide, scream, or just faint. Mom married Dad’s best man. Altimus was my father’s best friend!

  “Say it, say it,” Altimus commanded playfully from down the hall. “Who loves you more than me, Lauren?” Just the sound of his voice made Sydney break out in a cold sweat.

  “Ain’t nobody love her more than her damn mother,” Keisha interjected.

  “Whatever, you’re both crazy,” Lauren quipped.

  Sydney involuntarily dry-heaved. As soon as she regained her composure, she shoved the album under the sink behind the countless bottles of shampoo and conditioner and turned on the faucet. I’ve got to talk to Lauren. But she’ll never believe me. She’s got to know. She’ll just sell me out again. Sydney wrestled with her thoughts as she feverishly rinsed her hands over and over. When she finally got herself together, Sydney turned off the water and dried her hand on the fluffy, white, monogrammed hand towel. It was decided: She definitely had to tell Lauren. All she had to do now was figure out how.

  20

  LAUREN

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Jermaine said as Lauren climbed the stairs at the MARTA West End Station. “Somebody might think we got a thing going on or something.”

  Despite that she felt like crap, Lauren giggled and threw her arms around Jermaine’s neck, leaning in for a short, passionate kiss. “I was under the impression that we do have a thing going on, Mr. Watson.” Lauren pulled back to look at Jermaine’s face; she loved it when he smiled and made a habit of sticking her Vamp Black-painted pointer fingernail into his dimples. She remembered once while she was lying around in her room thinking about Jermaine that her mother used to do this to her when she was a little girl. Jermaine once mentioned to her that his dimples were definitely one of his “selling points” with the ladies. “But they’re mine, now,” Lauren said, feigning jealousy with a pronounced pout. “I might as well put them in my pocket and take them with me.” He always seemed amused when Lauren said that.

  Jermaine pulled back from Lauren’s embrace and looked around to see who all was watching them. It was cold outside—the first real chill of the fall season—so there weren’t a lot of folks hanging out like usual, just a few stragglers rolling dice outside Nifty’s Package Store, which, on most nights, stayed open longer than the clubs. If you couldn’t get your drink on at Joy’s Gentleman’s Club (a strip joint, it was anything but gentlemanly, but nobody ever paid much attention to the name), you could always count on a quick stop at Nifty’s to get your after-hours drink on. On this particular night, though, nobody seemed to be paying anyone else who was on the street much of any mind, but Jermaine, still a little shaky from his last almost-run-in with Lauren’s daddy, wasn’t trying to linger too long out in public. This much Jermaine knew for sure: He didn’t want Altimus Duke to know that he was the reason his daughter was still hanging out in the hood.

  “Come on, let’s get outta here,” Jermaine said, pulling his hoodie up onto his head and taking Lauren’s hand. “It’s cold out here. My moms is over at my auntie’s house, checking in on my grandmother, so it’s cool if we go back to my place.”

  “What about your brother—he there?”

  “Nah—I don’t know where he at, and don’t really care,” Jermaine snapped.

  “Okay then,” Lauren said, wrinkling her eyebrows. “Your house it is.”

  On the short five-minute ride to his place, Lauren emptied out her cache of goings-on, starting with the crazy way Altimus was acting in the car, and how she’d written down on that slip of paper a few fake names instead of the real ones, hoping that it would keep Altimus off his trail. She continued with Marcus telling her that he had a bona fide “thing” with Dara behind Sydney’s back, and her suspicions that it was Sydney who circulated the ugly story about her encounter on the Thug Heaven video set. By the time they pulled into Jermaine’s tiny, gravel driveway, Lauren was running down the entire list of “don’ts” Altimus and Keisha had laid on her as punishment for visiting the West End. “The crazy thing about it,” Lauren said as Jermaine opened her car door and took her hand to help her out, “is that both of them are acting as if nothing is wrong—like they don’t have me practically tethered to my sleigh bed. I mean, one minute they’re taking away every form of communication I own and treating me like I’m in preschool, and the next minute we’re going to dinner. Keisha’s all treating me to pedicures, and Altimus is throwing hints about some big surprise he’s getting for me. He even offered to take me shopping for my Homecoming dress. I just don’t get them,” she insisted.

  “I’m not so sure you really want to,” Jermaine said cryptically as he pushed his key into his front door lock and hit the massive piece of wood with his shoulder. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “See, that’s what I love about you, Jermaine,” Lauren said breathlessly. She eyeballed the living room and kitchen to make sure they really were alone, and then grabbed Jermaine by the tail of his hoodie and pulled him close to her. “You’re the only one who truly understands me, who doesn’t judge me for who I am or who my parents are, isn’t all impressed with it and stuff,” she said, planting a kiss on his lips. “You’re not like the other boys I’ve dated. Nothing like them.” She kissed him again.

  “Look, did you ever think that there might be a chance that your father isn’t who you think he is?” Jermaine asked, pulling away from Lauren and taking her hand. This time she instinctively led the way into his bedroom.

  “Whose parents are who we think they are?” Lauren asked, twirling onto Jermaine’s bed and kicking off her chocolate Chanel ballet flats. “I swear, they spend so much time trying to keep us from doing all the things they know good and well they did when they were our age that they forget we have the right to live our lives the way we see fit. Shoot, I know Keisha was some wildfire back in her day, especially if it’s true that you mellow with age, ‘cause mellow, she ain’t.” She pulled Jermaine onto the bed next to her and drew him close.

  “Yeah, you’re right about that,” Jermaine said, rubbing his brow. “But do you really know any of Altimus’s background—where he’s from?”

  “Of course I do, Jermaine—I mean, he raised me from when I was in kindergarten. He grew up in the hood in Atlanta, father wasn’t around, got rich selling cars, blah, blah, blah. I mean, what more is there to know?”

  “A lot,” Jermaine murmured under his breath.

  “Look, there’s no reason to be afraid of Altimus Duke,” Lauren assured. “He’s just an overprotective daddy who didn’t take too kindly to seeing his daughter hanging out in a pool hall in the West End. We live in Buckhead for a reason, trust.”

  “There may have been more to it than that,” Jermaine insisted.

  “What? Altimus is afraid I might fall in love with someone with less than sterling credentials? Someone who doesn’t live in a fancy house or drive one of his luxury rides, or have the phat bank account or go to the right schools or churches? Well, so what? He grew up the same way, and look how he turned out. Besides, Altimus is my father, but he’s not Lauren,” she said. “Lauren decides who Lauren is with, and I choose you, Jermaine Watson. I choose you.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Jermaine said, shaking his head. “Your father…”

  “Not in my mind,” Lauren insisted. “Not at all. I know who my father is, and no amount of bougie, overprotective bull from him is going to keep me away from you, Jermaine. You’re truly the only person w
ho I have ever trusted this much. And you don’t let me get away with shit, either. And I’m good with that—for real. All those other boys, they ain’t got nothing on you, for real.”

  Jermaine was quiet as Lauren stroked his face and then ran her fingers down his neck and his arm. He smirked when she gave his biceps, which were pushing against his hoodie, a squeeze. She leaned into his neck and inhaled deeply; she loved the way he smelled—like baby powder, no doubt from the deodorant he’d just applied. Once, when his scent rubbed off onto her sweater (from an extra-long, extra-close hug,) she slept with it in her bed for nearly four days, sending it with Edwina to the cleaners only after she could smell him no more.

  Jermaine turned his face to Lauren’s and looked into her eyes. He licked his thick brownish-pink lips, then leaned in and kissed her softly. Lauren returned his kiss with a passionate one of her own; they rocked back and forth, holding each other so close and tight that they felt like one.

  Lauren pulled back from his lips and his embrace and sat up. She looked down at her hands and fidgeted just a little, trying to find just the right words to say at this precise moment. Jermaine sat up, too.