Mecca's Return

by Anna J.

  “Shut up, Wayne!” Simone parted the crowd. “That’s enough. Y’all get off of her!”

  “Simone, mind your business. This ain’t got nothing to do with you!” one of them grumbled.

  “Don’t ya’ll see she’s had enough? Damn, it shouldn’t take all of y’all to beat on one girl. Real women fight their own battles!”

  Simone helped the girl off the ground. Blood leaked from a gash on her face. Her blouse and Italian-made pants were ripped and dirty, and her hair was out wild. She looked wrecked. Even with everything out of place, Simone could tell that the girl was beautiful, and the way she was dressed with her Manolos let her know she was fashionable and on point. These bitches were probably jealous. When Simone held the girl up, they both walked away toward busy Lenox Avenue. She could hear the girls mumbling under their breath, but they said nothing. Wayne followed.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Two blocks up. Thank you so much,” Mona said, limping.

  “Why were they jumping you?” she asked.

  “I got too much attention from their boyfriends, and I’m new around here. Crazy thing about it”—Mona chuckled while holding a bloody hand on her open wound—“I don’t like boys.”

  Mona then passed out. When she came to, she was lying in a bed in a Harlem hospital with twelve stitches on her swollen face and Simone holding her hand.

  “Where am I?” Mona asked groggily.

  “The hospital. You passed out.”

  Mona remembered the girls jumping her after the party, but she couldn’t remember anything after that.

  “My name’s Mona. What’s yours?”

  Simone visited Mona in Harlem every weekend afterward. They had the same taste in fashion, TV shows, books, and the same feelings for the same sex. They were inseparable until Scooter found out that Simone was still seeing Mona against his wishes.

  “That’s it. That’s the start of our relationship. Every time I see this scar in the mirror, it no longer makes me sad. I think of my honey, and the scar becomes like my lucky charm.” Mona smiled at Simone.

  Tashy had to hold back the tears. Afterward, Mona became a regular at Tashy’s apartment now that Simone was back in New York City. At first Scooter protested, but when Tashy demanded that she be able to get reacquainted with her daughter, Scooter surrendered. Then, one day, Mona was introduced to Ruby.

  At the first sight of each other, Ruby and Mona were attracted to each other. Mona was the type who liked to live life on the edge, the wild side ... and to her Ruby seemed like the one who could provide that life.

  For Ruby, Mona’s aura was a seductive elixir that stirred the pure lust within her. Mona knew the more time she spent around Ruby, the more the temptation would grow, but she didn’t want to hurt Simone. She loved her with all her heart, but love and lust were two different things. As far as Ruby was concerned, she had no commitments to anyone and she barely knew Simone. Tashy knew better than to try and lock Ruby down, because she had already tried in prison and couldn’t do it there. So in the free world, that would be impossible. Still, Mona avoided being in Ruby’s presence at all cost. If she saw her car outside Tashy’s brownstone, she wouldn’t stop by. She would call Simone and ask her to come to her apartment.

  One thing Mona was sure of was that if she crossed Simone, it could be bad for her health. And from what she’d learned about Ruby, there would definitely be hell up in Harlem if a confrontation started between them. What she did not know about her was that when Ruby wanted something, she usually got it.

  One night Mona answered a knock at her door, believing it was Simone coming over, and received a big surprise. Ruby stood in her doorway with a horny expression written on her face. No words were exchanged, but they both understood their silent communications and wasted no time devouring each other in a long night of passion. Mona had never experienced such pleasure before with a woman. It was as if everywhere Ruby touched or licked was a trigger for sending orgasms throughout her body.

  In return, Mona explored every part of Ruby’s curvaceous torso. The firmness of her body excited Mona. But to Ruby, Mona was okay in bed, but not as good as she’d expected and nowhere as good as Tashy. She decided that it was nothing worth repeating. But Mona was hooked.

  After they concluded their lust making and Ruby left, Mona awoke in the morning with a huge smile, picturing the next time she and Ruby could sneak off and get into it again. She would soon find out that Ruby had no intentions of ever getting in bed with her again. The lust was gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Your secrets are safe with me... .

  —Alicia Keys

  Mecca leaned on the terrace of her hotel bedroom overlooking the streets of Rome, holding a glass of champagne. She inhaled the Italian air, smiling to herself and thinking about how well her plans were playing out. The manila envelope sitting on the king-size bed reminded her that the final part of her plan would soon be put into motion. Life was good.

  While she awaited Miguel’s return from a game, she toured Rome in her rental, using the navigation system to find places in the city. Thoughts raced through her mind as she took in the sights. The city was beautiful in an old, but rich way. It looked nothing like the buildings in Brooklyn and made her feel like she was in another world.

  She was happy that she was financially comfortable to enjoy such pleasures and travel the world with the man she loved, who loved her back. Yet not all her thoughts were joyous. Occasionally, she would drop down into a depression as she remembered the things she’d seen on the mean streets. Streets where poor kids didn’t have the opportunity to experience what she was experiencing right now. It was on those same streets that children saw their mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers addicted to drugs, selling drugs, selling their own bodies, and murdered by gun-toting thugs or the police. They also saw their friends murdered. On these streets it was dangerous for them to play, and it was so easy for them to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  It saddened her because she knew she was part of the cycle of death that hovered over the city. Of course, it was all she knew, but that did not make it right. Even now she was using what she knew to pay back those who had wronged her when all she was trying to be was loyal. She thought about Daphne, those eyes, why she was in her dreams, and everything they had experienced since meeting. She hoped that her plan would make Daphne come out on top, because she really liked her. However, personal feelings had to be set aside in order for her plan to be successful. Too much was at risk.

  When she stepped out on the town, she adhered to the saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” and dressed in the finest Italian clothing and made sure Miguel did, too. They dined at outdoor restaurants, and they even played a game of boccie with a group of older Italian men and took in an opera.

  Mecca hated the opera. For Miguel, Mecca’s declarations of love weren’t etched in stone until one morning, when he awoke and went to the bathroom. There he found her sitting on the toilet, defecating, with the door wide open. She smiled at him and wiped. That was when he knew they were in love.

  For Mecca, Miguel’s love was proven when she finally decided to tell him about her vision while in a coma and Lou. Once she began, everything came out like a flood, and she could do nothing to stop it. She cried when she told him about the murder of her parents and her aunt’s involvement and how Lou had exposed all the lies in her life told by people around her.

  Miguel simply listened, and when it was all over, he hugged her. “It was a vision, Mecca. How can you be so sure they are true?”

  “A lot of the circumstances made it obvious,” she replied.

  Miguel didn’t know how to take her revelations. All he knew was that he loved her and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. So he left it at that. The coma was behind them, and life was moving on. Realizing she’d been through a lot, he was determined to fill the rest of her life with happiness.

  While they toured the ruins of the
Colosseum, Miguel removed a small box from his silk white slacks and got on one knee. Mecca lost her breath when he opened the box, which held a four-carat diamond in a platinum setting.

  “Mecca Sykes, one day isn’t worth living if you’re not my wife. Marry me.”

  “Yes!” Mecca yelled before he could even finish.

  “Damn, what a brother gotta do to be more than just a fuck?”

  “Don’t ask to be more than just a fuck is what he gotta do,” Daphne answered with a smile as she rushed one of her casual sex partners out of her apartment. Men practically begged for her to be their woman. She received so many flowers at her restaurant so often, people were starting to think it was a florist/restaurant. She didn’t even read the cards. Andrea would amuse herself reading them to her, but she never paid any attention.

  Daphne used men that she met on occasion like men used women. Purely physical. She wanted no attachments to any of them. To her, no man could replace Donovan. Everyone tried telling her to let go and open her heart, even Junior, who advised, “You will never be happy if you don’t love again. What is life if you have no legacy to leave behind? You will achieve happiness from raising a family.” While she listened and nodded, her heart said otherwise. There were big shoes to fill to receive her heart, and so far all the men she dealt with had come up short.

  Shutting the door of her brownstone after the inadequate plumber left, she had a moment to think. Wrapped in a black silk robe that reached her toned thighs, she grabbed the manila envelope that had a bunch of stamps on it, had been postmarked in Italy, and had no return address, and opened it.

  Daphne smiled as she saw photos of Mecca and Miguel posing in front of various European landmarks. The Eiffel Tower, Westminster Abbey, the Louvre, Buckingham Palace, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the Colosseum.

  The smile vanished as she eyed the photos of Ruby smiling with Mo Blood, with Tah Gunz in the background. There was even a photo of Ruby and Breeze in front of his Sutter Gardens building. Daphne was confused. She had no idea who these people in the pictures with Ruby were, or why Mecca had sent them. She looked back in the manila envelope and took out a letter from Mecca.

  Daphne,

  First, let me say, I took your advice and traveled the world. What makes it more exciting is that I’m doing it with the man I truly love and trust. (You should give love another chance. You deserve it!) And guess what? I’m engaged! There are pictures of me there with the four-carat rock on my finger. Can you say bling-bling? I’m happy now, Daphne, and it feels good having people around you that care about your happiness. That brings me to the pictures of Ruby and those men.

  I told you once before that at one time my aunt was my idol. She was everything I wanted to be. She is courageous, independent, self-sufficient, and business minded. At the same time she is a ruthless, self-centered, “it’s all about her” snake! She is the reason why my mother and father got killed. Her greed made her help set up my father to be robbed. She did it because she was strung out on dick. A man’s good dick is her weakness. That’s why she lives a gay lifestyle, so she can remain in control. She killed the men responsible for the murders so they wouldn’t expose her.

  She let me fall in love with a man who she was having sex with behind my back. He worked for her, but in reality, he called the shots because she was weak for the dick. Those men in the photos (the one in the wheelchair and the one with him) are the guys who shot me, putting me in a coma. She had them selling weed for her in Brownsville.

  They are dead now. She killed them for the same reason she killed the men who killed my parents. Not to be exposed. She uses people for what she needs, and when she’s done, she kills them. She’s a black widow. The other man in the picture with just him and her, his name is Breeze. He is the guy who robbed your restaurant, and she staged the robbery of her store.

  I’m telling you these things because she doesn’t deserve to have the opportunity to do what she does to another person who has been loyal to her. What you do with this info is all on you, but I assume you will move wisely. I don’t think I’m coming back to New York. As much as I love it, my heart belongs to my man now. Hopefully, we will see each other again. We gotta do Paris and Italy together. I met Donatella Versace!

  Take care, Daphne. Oh, did you like my tearful act at Karmen’s funeral?

  Peace

  Mecca

  Daphne put the letter down, infuriated. Donovan’s words played in her head as she contemplated her next move. “The longer someone stays in the game, the more likely they will slip up and show their hand. And most people bluff, as if they have a good hand, until the cards are shown.”

  Looking at Mecca’s picture, Daphne mouthed, “Thank you, Mecca. We are definitely the last of a dying breed.”

  Daphne reached for her multicolored Louis Vuitton pocketbook and pulled out her Nokia cell phone. When the person she called answered, she spoke.

  “Junior, I’m going to need an umbrella. A storm is brewing.”

  “Can you come out of the rain without getting wet?” Junior inquired.

  “No. I was locked out of the house,” Daphne sighed.

  The line went dead. In their coded language, Daphne made it clear that a war was inevitable. There was no other way of dealing with Ruby that would leave her on top, and she would have to deal with the storm head-on. Junior wanted to know if it could be avoided, and from what Daphne said, it couldn’t. Ruby had to die.

  “Happiness is short lived when you enjoy making others unhappy.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean? Are you about to give me another of your speeches? Because I got better things to do,” Mecca announced to Lou, who sat on a bench, reading a newspaper, with his legs folded.

  In this dream they were both dressed in eighties apparel, sitting on a bench in the Langston Hughes projects, which she’d grown up in. The streets were empty, and a cold breeze flowed through the dark night. Mecca pulled the earflaps of her gray sheepskin hat over her ears, shivering at the cutting cold. As she looked up, she could see movement in the lighted apartments above.

  “What do you have to do that’s more important than being here with me?” Lou asked jealously. Mecca held her hand in front of her, showing her engagement ring off.

  “I’m engaged, so what I have to do is be a good fian-cée.” Mecca smiled. “And travel the world.”

  “Just don’t forget where you came from,” Lou murmured.

  “How can I?” she asked as she gestured at her surroundings with her hands. Afterward, she folded her arms across her chest and said, “You never told me why, out of all places and all people, you chose Brownsville and me.”

  Lou smiled. He smiled because he loved showing Mecca answers instead of telling her. He snapped his fingers, and suddenly the neighborhood came alive with sunshine and people. They watched as a group of children stood over a syringe that sat on the ground, among the litter of broken glass, crack vials, soiled Pampers, and the other filth that ghetto streets are adorned with.

  One boy, about nine years old, picked up the syringe to show the rest of his group that he was brave. At the same time, Lou said, “You’re not the only one experiencing the likes of me, Mecca. There are Meccas and Brownsvilles everywhere, so there are Lous everywhere.”

  Mecca watched the boy with the syringe and wondered if he knew what it was. The boy acted like he was about to shoot dope, an action that he’d probably seen someone do before, because he knew exactly how to hold the needle. He grinned and spoke to the other kids, but Mecca could not hear him. Then he plunged the needle into his arm.

  “No! No! Don’t!” Mecca jumped up and ran toward him.

  Mecca awoke out of another dream, feeling cold from the open hotel windows. The white curtains blew in gently, giving the room an eerie feel. She knew she didn’t scream, because Miguel was still sound asleep next to her. Slowly, she got up and closed the double windows. She crawled back into the bed and cuddled up next to Miguel, who had his back to her. Feeling w
armer, she wrapped her arms around him and held on a little tighter.

  She watched as the colors of the sky began to change slightly as dawn approached. As Miguel turned, he tugged on the blanket in a way that exposed his nudity. Mecca felt his hardness and smiled. The sun wasn’t the only thing rising up this morning.

  Chapter Thirteen

  If you cause opponents to be unaware of the place and time of battle, you can always win.

  —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  Ruby was nervously puzzled. For a week straight, she had had no idea where Daphne was. It was as if she’d ceased to exist. The Crown Heights restaurant had been shut down, and when she went to Daphne’s house, a strange woman with a Haitian accent and bad skin, wearing a crooked wig, a cheap floral-print dress, and house slippers that revealed to the world her ashy and crusty feet, answered the door.

  “I know no Daphne. I bought this house last week from a real estate agent representing the owner,” the woman yelled over the sound of music that Ruby could not recognize. When she tried her cell phone number, the robotic voice told her that the number was disconnected.

  She wanted to explain to Daphne that she’d got a better deal with another weed connect. She hoped that Daphne would understand and believed she deserved at least an explanation. Ruby had a lot of respect for Daphne, but business was business. Plus, she was hoping she could squash the animosity between Daphne and Tashy. Having the animosity exist between her two friends made her feel uncomfortable, and Ruby hated being uncomfortable.

  In prison, she’d tried to bring the women together, but it wouldn’t work. On the streets, she needed it to work, because such animosity could be bad for business, and she still planned on being in business with Daphne. Everybody was useful. That same week when she drove to Brooklyn, she received news that she was in no mood to hear.