The Break-Up Diaries
Page 16
Today is the day we get to see the episodes of our BET reality show, Backstage: The Epsilon Records Summer Tour. I shouldn’t be nervous, because I went out of my way to make sure I didn’t do anything that could be misconstrued as ghetto or lame. I didn’t talk bad about anybody in my confessionals, I never once used profanity, and I was only digging one boy the whole time (Sam).
So, I shouldn’t be nervous.
But for some crazy reason I am. I have the butterflies-flitting-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach feeling that something ridiculous is about to pop off.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t really talked to anyone except Sam since the taping completed. We ended on a bad note. The final show in New York City got cancelled because of a botched kidnapping attempt that ended up in a nightclub brawl. It was all bad.
I keep playing the whole thing over and over again in my head, because I knew about the kidnapping ahead of time, but didn’t tell anyone. In hindsight, I should’ve tried to do something, but I was afraid that something bad might happen to my mom and little cousin. That’s all I was thinking about. It didn’t even occur to me that telling Big D, Mystique, or Dilly about what was going down could’ve given a different result.
And now, I’m paying the price for that. Dilly’s still not speaking to me, and the tour has been over for three weeks. Big D is a little salty with me too, and that really hurts, because he’s always in my corner. Mystique is a little disappointed, but she told me that she would’ve done what I did, so that made me feel better.
My phone buzzes on my hip. “Hey, Sam.”
“You want me to pick you up to go to the studio ? Or are you driving, since you finally decided to stop being a tightwad and got yourself a car?”
I laugh out loud. Yes, I am a tightwad with the money I’ve earned so far on the songwriting end of things. But when I got my six-thousand-dollar check at the end of the tour, I went to a used-car lot and got a car. It’s a tricked-out gold Toyota Camry that was probably seized from a drug dealer or something. Anyhoo, I’m on wheels.
“Why don’t I pick you up for a change?” I ask. “I do want to drive, but I don’t want to show up alone. I’m afraid I might get jumped.”
“Dilly still isn’t talking, huh?”
“No, and neither are Dreya and Truth, although I don’t know why they’re mad.”
“Does Drama need a reason?”
I chuckle. “No, not really, but I think if someone would call her by her real name every now and then she might remember that Drama is a stage name, and that she doesn’t have to live up to it.”
“She will forever be Ms. Drama to me,” Sam states.
“Well, whatever. She’s Dreya to me. I’ll pick you up in an hour. Cool?”
“Yep.”
My mother calls me from the living room. “Sunday ! Come here, now!”
“Sam, let me call you back. My mom is tripping on something.”
Her voice sounds crazy, like she’s about to try to ground me for something. But we’ve officially halted all punishment activities since I turned eighteen, and graduated from high school. Like how’s she gonna ground me when I’m helping pay bills up in here? Real talk.
But still she sounds like she’s in trip-out mode. I am sooo not in the mood.
“Sunday, sit down,” my mom says when I come into the living room.
“What’s up?”
“Look at what just came in the mail.”
She hands me an envelope that’s addressed to me and my mom, but doesn’t have a return address. I open up the envelope and inside is a cashier’s check.
For twenty-five thousand dollars.
It’s the exact amount of money that my mother’s boyfriend Carlos borrowed from my college fund to buy into Club Pyramids. It’s the exact amount that was stolen from him when the deal went sour and he ended up getting shot.
“Do you think this has anything to do with Carlos’s cousins trying to kidnap Dilly?” she asks.
“How can we say for sure? We don’t even know who sent it.”
My mother replies, “It had to be Carlos. Somehow he got his hands on the money and he’s trying to make it up to you.”
“But why wouldn’t he let you know it was coming ? I mean, he knows how to get in contact with us.”
My mother sits down next to me and takes the check back. She flips it over a few times as if she’s looking for clues to its origin. She sighs and shakes her head.
“Maybe it was the record company. Maybe they want all of the ghettoness surrounding you to stop, especially since they want to do a reality show with just you.”
Apparently, BET liked what they saw of me from the reality-show footage, and they want to give me my own show. That’s all good, and I know they don’t want any more brawls taking place during my new gig. But how would the head honchos at BET know about the twenty-five thousand dollars? There is no way Mystique or Big D would tell them what really went down at the club in New York.
“I don’t think it was Epsilon Records, Mommy. They aren’t really in the loop with all the drama.”
“Maybe it was Big D or Mystique?”
I bite my lip and think about this for a moment. Big D is out. He’s known all along about the money, and if he wanted to give it to me, he could’ve done it at any time. Mystique is a possibility. She’s the type who would do something under the radar and not sign her name to it.
“I don’t know,” I finally reply. “Maybe. I’ll ask them both.”
My mother shakes her head. “No. Don’t ask. Whoever sent this doesn’t want it to be known, or else they would’ve signed their name. We just have to look at it for exactly what it is.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, completely confused at her reasoning.
“That’s simple. It’s a gift from God.”
Hmmm . . . a gift from God? While I’m as Christian as the next person, I doubt that He’s just sending random checks in the mail. If He was doing that, why doesn’t He send them to people who really need it? I mean, for real, I’ve got hundreds of thousands of dollars on the way. Isn’t there some poor single mom out there who could use the check more? I’m just saying.
But there’s no way I’m gonna argue with my mother when it has to do with a blessing. She’ll make me attend daily revivals, Bible study, vacation Bible school and everything else if I even think I sound like I don’t have faith.
So, it’s up to me to figure out the identity of the mystery check writer. Something new to put on my already overflowing plate!
“Well, I guess we just need to thank the Lord,” I reply.
“You sound like you’re being sarcastic, Sunday.”
“I’m not! If it’s from God, then I think I should thank Him.”
“All right. Keep it up and your new reality show will follow you around at vacation Bible school.”
This would be funny only if she didn’t really mean it. Even though I’m eighteen, I’m still afraid of her. I have to hurry up and figure out who the mystery check donor is, before my mom makes her move.
Can somebody say a prayer for me?
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