Queen Divas

by De'nesha Diamond

  Fowler catches up to me immediately.

  “Don’t tell me that I’m going to have to slap a restraining order on your ass for stalking.”

  “I would hardly call what I—”

  “What do you want?” I ask, rounding on him in hopes that he will cut to the chase.

  “I—I just wanted to see if you needed me to tag along when you go and interview your father on the Ruby Cove massacre.”

  “Ruby Cove massacre.” I roll my eyes and resume walking.

  “That’s what they are calling it on the news,” Fowler informs me. “Plus, the chief made it clear that she wants him brought in.”

  “And I will bring him in,” I snap.

  “When?”

  I face him again at my office door. “Sometime after you get your shit out of my office.”

  That shuts his ass up. In fact, we get locked into a staring contest that there’s no fucking way he’s going to win.

  Finally he enters the office and starts removing his things. I stand, perhaps like a petulant child, until he retrieves every bit of it.

  “You know, things don’t have to be like this. What do you say that after work, we go down to Alex’s and grab a couple of drinks and talk things out?”

  “I say that there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that’s happening. Now take your shit and get out of my face.”

  27

  Ta’Shara

  The Douglases and the Sullivans are being so good to me. The fact that my foster parents, Tracee and Reggie, saw to include me in their wills has opened up a wide range of options. They left me five hundred thousand dollars, payable on my eighteenth birthday. But it’s the idea of my walking away from Profit permanently that has a knot still lodged in the center of my throat.

  I’ve lived on or near Ruby Cove for three months, and in that time, I’ve already bodied about five people—or was it six? This wasn’t supposed to be me. While I was striving to not be like LeShelle, I ran headlong into the street trap. If I don’t get out now, the state has a set of iron bars, if not a lethal injection, with my name on it. Why is this even a question with me? I have to get out now—at least while I still can.

  Besides, it’s not fair to burden Profit with the probability of my permanent paralysis. Why would he want a cripple to take care of for the rest of his life?

  I turn my gaze toward the lone window. The Memphis landscape is cast in gray. It’s as if the entire city is in mourning. Every day that the gang wars escalate is another day that it loses another bit of its soul.

  In my room, there’s a chilly silence. In the hallway, I can hear the hustle and bustle of the hospital. My mind drifts to what time the doctor will sign my release forms. One thing that I’ve learned about hospitals is that they believe in taking their sweet time.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Speak of the devil. I sit up straighter in the bed before a head pokes inside of the room. But it’s not Dr. Nelson’s head—nor is it any of the nurses.

  “Ta’Shara Murphy?” she asks.

  Captain Hawkins. My defenses rise as I watch her creep into the room.

  “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Captain Hydeya Hawkins with the Memphis Police Department. We met a few months back when . . . your boyfriend’s mother, Barbara Lewis was here in the hospital.”

  And now she’s dead, too. “Yes. I remember you.”

  She nods and assesses me. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been shot a few times,” I answer without a smile.

  “Well, I know what that feels like.” She chuckles and then manages not to look offended when I don’t join in. “I came to see if you’re ready to talk more about what happened the other night.”

  “I already gave my statement,” I tell her.

  “Yes. I did take a peek at that.” She leans against the bed and crosses her arms. “I guess what I’m asking is whether you want to add anything else to it. You have had more time to think about that night. Sometimes trauma can make us forget important details. Like, did you happen to see the people who stormed into the house and grabbed your friend Willow?”

  “Humph. She’s hardly a friend of mine.” The moment the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. What goes on in a family should stay in the family. As a Vice Lord Flower, Lucifer and I are a part of the same family.

  Captain Hawkins nods, absorbing my words. “Regardless of what happened, it is fortunate that you and Ms. Washington survived the ordeal. A lot of other people weren’t so lucky.” She pauses for emphasis. “I’m afraid that my coming over here isn’t solely about what happened to you in that house, but . . . I need to tell you about some bad news.”

  I tense as my imagination flies. “Is it about Profit?”

  “Profit? Oh. You mean your boyfriend, Raymond? No. Last I heard he posted bail this morning. This is . . . uh, about your sister, LeShelle. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but . . . her body was discovered early this morning.”

  I drop my gaze and then become self-conscious about how I should act. Should I gasp? Cry? I doubt that I even have water in my tear ducts to fake cry for that evil bitch, so instead, I allow the room to get incredibly quiet while I show no reaction at all.

  “Are you all right?” the captain asks, her face scrunching like she already finds my behavior odd.

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  When a full minute of silence passes, Hawkins hits me with, “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  I don’t trust myself to speak, so I simply shake my head.

  Hawkins presses forward. “I know about what happened at the Memphis Mental Health hospital. A few months back, you attacked your sister with a pair of knitting needles, if I recall. So I understand that there may still be some bad blood between the two of you, but I just thought that you should know what happened to her.”

  Silence.

  Captain Hawkins exhales a long breath. “Ms. Murphy, I’m going to go out on a limb here. I talked to the Sullivans and Douglases out in the lobby and they told me about your inheritance and their offer for you to move down to Houston.”

  My gaze creeps back up to her face.

  “Look. Once upon a time, I used to be just like you.”

  “Humph!” I shake my head in disbelief.

  “No. It’s true. I came up rough on the wrong side of the tracks in South Chicago. My own juvenile record was expunged when I turned eighteen and I joined the military. I want you to know that there is better out there. I see the road that you’re going down . . . and if someone is offering you a chance to get out of the game before the game drags you down or takes you out, grab hold of it and run like hell.”

  Apparently, my tear ducts aren’t as dry as I thought because the room swims and the knot in my throat becomes painful.

  “Just think about it.” With her hip, Captain Hawkins pushes herself away from the bed and heads toward the door.

  “Thank you,” I whisper before she slips out, not knowing whether she can hear me.

  “You’re welcome.”

  28

  Lucille

  “Wake up, sweet baby. Please wake up.”

  There’s no response, but I know Willow can hear me. That may be irrational or illogical, but it’s the only thing I have to hold on to. I’ve suffered so many losses that it’s hard not to believe that God hates me. What other excuse could there be?

  I am grateful that somehow Mason Junior survived the trauma of his early birth. He’s not going to be without his own health challenges in the future. But he will live.

  Willow? It’s not looking too good. I can’t even understand most of the medical terminology that the doctors keep throwing around. How can someone so young, who has never had any major health issues, just up and have a brain aneurysm? From the way that it was explained to me, Willow must’ve suffered a traumatic brain injury during the car crash. A clot formed and then steadily built while she went into labor. Then it exploded. It all sounds crazy, but I
just want them to fix my baby.

  Through fat tears, I rub Willow’s hand, disturbed by how cold and clammy her skin feels.

  “Wake up, baby. Wake up.”

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  I close my eyes against the sound of the heart monitor. As frustrating as it is to listen to it, it’s still better than the alternative: a flat line.

  “C’mon, Willow. You know you have to wake up so that you can meet and hold that beautiful baby. He’s going to need you. There’s nothing that can take the place of a child’s mother,” I tell her. “I know that maybe we haven’t always seen things eye to eye. But you got to know that I’ve always tried to do right by you and your brother. Even after Darcell left us, I mean. There are a lot of things that I should’ve been more honest about. Things were easier when you were younger. When you grew older, you were so angry.” I stop and pull myself together. “I’m not trying to lay all the blame on you. None of it was your fault. It’s me. It’s my fault; but I pray that you really do know that I love you. You are my baby girl. Forever and always.”

  Tears rush like a waterfall. There’s no way for me to stop them so I let it all out.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  29

  Hydeya

  As I exit out of Ta’Shara’s cold and somber hospital room, I already regret not saying more to the young teenager. Despite all the internal alarms going off regarding the girl’s reaction to the news of her sister’s death, there is something delicate if not vulnerable about the wide-eyed teenager that makes me want to protect her rather than persecute her. Did Ta’Shara have something to do with her sister’s death?

  I sigh as I glance down the crowded hallway and spot Raymond Lewis, or rather Profit, striding toward Ta’Shara’s room. I take special note of his downcast head and his tense body language. I hate to admit it, but he reminds me of my own forbidden teenage love for a boy named Cash. Looking back, our love was doomed from the moment we laid eyes on each—but you couldn’t tell us that.

  Cash was a product of the system. He loved those South Chicago streets as much as he proclaimed to love me. Slinging drugs and gang-banging gave him an adrenaline rush that left him as addicted to the game as his customers were addicted to his product. To a young girl with daddy issues, I was attracted to him like a moth to a flame. I didn’t give a shit whether I ever got burned or blew up in flames. I wanted to be with him—no matter the cost.

  Finally, Profit notices me a full second before walking right into my ass. He starts to say something before recognition flashes into his puppy-dog brown eyes.

  I push up a smile. “We meet again.”

  “What are you doing here?” His lips curl with a snarl as his downtrodden body language becomes more defensive than what is warranted.

  “Is that a real question?”

  He backs up a step. “Look. I don’t have anything to say to you unless you’re here to tell me that you put down the muthafuckas that pumped bullets into my girl and destroyed my neighborhood.”

  “How do you expect us to do that when everyone involved is evoking the no-snitch rule?”

  Raymond shrugs. “I can’t tell you how to do your job, but if it were me, I’d round up the entire Gangster Disciple crew and put the heat on them until they crack. Harassing the victims is not going to get you anywhere.”

  “The last time I saw you, you were thanking the department for helping your mother.”

  “Well, she’s dead now so . . .” He looks away from me when my head cocks in surprise.

  “Dead? How? When?”

  “Look. I don’t want to talk about it right now. I want to see my girl, so if you’ll excuse me.” Raymond reaches for Ta’Shara’s door, but I block his exit from our conversation.

  “Don’t let the rules of the street cloud your judgment here. I’m not the enemy.”

  He laughs. “C’mon, lady.” He takes another step back. “How long have you been in the game?” he asks, but doesn’t wait for my answer. “You didn’t make captain without knowing how all of this shit works. You are most definitely the enemy. All you want to do is lock up as many niggas as humanly possible. You don’t give a shit about us or what we have to do to survive out here—so run this game on another player who hasn’t bothered to read the playbook. Okay? I have nothing further to say to you. Now please, step out of my way.”

  In order not to bring myself down to his level, I clamp my jaws tight and then force myself to sidestep to the left.

  “Thank you.” His fist slams open the door before he storms into his girlfriend’s hospital room.

  I’m left to stand in the hallway, stewing that I have to let a punk like him curse me out. The knowledge that he’ll soon learn one day that I’m right and that he should have accepted the olive branch that I’m offering him doesn’t tamp down my anger.

  I need a cigarette. It’s a wild thought since I don’t smoke. Turning, I walk away from Ta’Shara’s room with the intent of leaving the hospital to make the long-dreaded pit stop at Shotgun Row, but instead I walk to the hospital’s intensive care unit. I enter Willow Washington’s room, where I find her mother, sobbing and begging her daughter to wake up.

  The only answer she gets is the steady beep from the heart monitor, the steady hiss from the breathing machine, and a stream of air that blows through the small tube in her daughter’s nose. It’s a scene that has me backpedaling as fast as I entered.

  “The baby is doing well,” Lucille whispers to her motionless daughter. “He’s a strong one, just like his mother.”

  Gone is her daughter’s long hair. Her complexion is now a dull brown and her full lips look as though they are chapping. As if she heard my thoughts, Lucille reaches into her black purse and removes a tube of ChapStick. I watch through watering eyes how she lovingly takes care of Willow. Even pulling out a tube of cocoa butter to moisturize her hands.

  I think of my own mother and how she and my militant stepfather have only seen fit to fill my voicemail with concerned messages rather than hop on a plane to Memphis to see personally how I’m holding up. While it’s true that my stepfather saved me from the streets, he never accepted a white man as my husband. They love me, I know, in their way, and I shouldn’t compare them, or even King Isaac, to this loving mother, but at this moment, I can’t help it.

  Exiting Washington’s room, I make my way down to the neonatal intensive care unit. It’s a nursery that provides around-the-clock care for ill or premature newborns. After flashing my badge, I quietly search around until I find Mason Lewis Junior. When I spot him, I’m momentarily amazed by how small yet perfect his tiny body appears in the incubator. There are a few tubes attached to his nose and arms, but he appears to be sleeping soundly.

  While watching him, a genuine smile forms on my face. I repeat to myself over and over again that he’s going to make it. Inevitably, my mind tumbles over memories of the constant arguments with Drake about when I was going to come off the pill and start our own family. I hemmed and hawed for years, thinking that we had plenty of time. Foolish statements and arguments float through my mind. What I wouldn’t do or give to have a child with Drake’s kind eyes and dimpled cheeks.

  A kind-faced nurse walks over to Mason Junior’s small incubator and then lovingly stretches her hands inside to give him a few minutes of encouraging human touch. When she looks over at me, my eyes are swimming in an ocean of tears. I turn and leave before making a complete fool of myself. Outside the unit, I stop next to a long window that displays the darkening gray cityscape. The image reflects my mood. I’m dreading my trip out to Shotgun Row and subjecting myself to whatever lies my father is going to sling my way.

  I know that he and his guys are responsible for the Ruby Cove massacre, as Fowler called it, so how do I go about proceeding with this mess without implicating myself? After all, I saw the weapons when he and his goon squad locked me in a bedroom, and I have yet to mention those facts to anyone. On the surface it makes me look complicit or like I’m aiding and abetting my
father’s crimes. Hell. That’s exactly what it is. It’s exactly the kind of thing that the chief would use to snatch my badge again, and this time I may never get it back again, despite Fowler’s major fuckup for not responding to the department’s calls and texts.

  My sigh is long and heavy. The very thing I feared happening when King Isaac was released took less than a month to actually come to pass. My gaze drifts away from the skyline and down toward the multilevel parking lot, where a scene playing out has me thinking that my eyes are playing tricks on me. Squinting, I zero in on the two guys and one female, huddled together and talking while constantly glancing over their shoulders. It’s not a trick. It’s Fowler, Hendrix, and Mason Carver-Lewis.

  What in the hell are they up to?

  30

  Ta’Shara

  Still mulling over Captain Hawkins’s words, I’m unprepared when Profit enters my room. But the moment I see him a smile eases onto my face and tears rush to my eyes. “Profit.”

  The worry lines that were grooved into his forehead smooth away as he looks at my face and sees that I’m okay. “Shara, baby.” He strolls over to the bed and gathers me into his arms. I cling to his strength and warmth while my love for him overwhelms me. After everything, this man still holds the key to my heart. It doesn’t matter that he’s no good for me or that thus far our love has only brought pain and destruction to so many lives. All that matters is right here and right now.

  Profit pulls back and breaks the temporary spell. “How are you feeling, baby?” He kisses the center of my forehead and then peppers kisses across my cheeks, nose, and lips. “You have no fucking idea how worried I was about you.”

  “I’m fine,” I tell him with tears streaking from my eyes. “You heard about . . . ?” I can’t even get myself to say her name.What if I see more than just a brotherly concern for Lucifer in his eyes? Will I be able to handle it? Will that damn kiss always stand between us?

  Profit drops his head. “Yeah. I heard. Mason is tore up over it. I’m still having a hard time believing that shit even happened.”