by Ni-Ni Simone
I shot up in bed, frowning. What the flimflamfluckery is he talking about now? “Daddy, who are you talking about? Who’s Cleola? And who is coming for her?”
“Them boys down in Mississippi. It isn’t safe, Cleola. You know I been keeping your secret.”
I blinked.
What secret?
“Daddy. You’re not making any sense. Who is Cleola?” I paused, taking a deep breath and swinging my legs over the side of the bed, then shoving my feet into my fluffy slippers. I padded across the room toward my private terrace, swinging the glass doors open. “Please don’t tell me this Cleola is some secret love child you had with some striped jungle bunny you’ve kept hidden in some mountain cave, and now you’re confusing me with her. I’m not trying to be a sister to anyone unless it’s to Sister Mary Louise Francis.”
“Sssh, Cleola. Hurry up. They’re coming. Did you hide the gun?”
I gasped, almost dropping my phone. Either Daddy was going cuckoo, or he needed to find the nearest confession booth and get his sin book stamped because he was really, really acting like he had something scandalous going on, something deliciously smarmy and shady, and I needed to get to the nit and grit of it.
“Cleola? Cleola?”
I bit down on my bottom lip. Resisted the urge to go off. This is what most of my conversations with Daddy were starting to be like—crazy and foolish. And lately they were becoming more consistent. And I didn’t do crazy and foolish well. And I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do it now. But Daddy was the only person, aside from Vera, whom I’d never turned the fire up on. And I didn’t want to start now.
However, Daddy’s phone calls were starting to test my nerves. And every time we’d hang up, or he’d hang up on me, or I’d accidentally—which I’d been telling myself lately so that I wouldn’t feel bad for being messy—hang up on him, I’d toss and turn for most of the night. Or would start crying.
And I don’t even know why I’d be crying. It wasn’t like Daddy had been home spending quality time with me since I’d been back from Le Rosey—the Swiss boarding school where I’d spent three-and-a-half years of my life up until this summer, when I returned home from studies abroad. No. The Himalayas and Kenya had gotten all of his attention since I’d been back.
The last holiday I’d actually spent with Daddy was last year, one of those rare occasions when I’d returned to the States. He’d come home to surprise me for Thanksgiving and ended up staying through Christmas. That was one of the best times of my life, ever. I had Daddy for a whole month, all to myself.
But, of course Kitty had to be a real rattlesnake and start with her hissing and tail rattling when I’d asked her to take some time off from her precious TV networks so that we could be—okay, dang it, act like—a family for once. “Spencer, dear. Get your pretty little head out of those billowy clouds of yours and stop living in fantasy, darling. You can sit around inhaling old-man fumes and counting the wrinkles in your father’s forehead if you’d like, but I’m not interested in acting like a family. Now come give your mother a kiss. I have a plane to catch. Now be a doll. Call me when your father’s gone.”
And with that said, she was out the door. She didn’t step her heeled feet back through these doors until two weeks later! So what if she didn’t want to play nice with Daddy? It’s what I wanted.
This was about Daddy. Not that low-down treacherous lizard.
Mmph.
“Cleola, talk to me, dammit!” Daddy barked into the phone as I stepped out onto my terrace, trying to decompress my stewing temper. I inhaled, breathing in the faint scent of jasmine.
“Daddy, for the hundredth time, this is not Cleola, gotdangit! And what kind of woman would name her child some mess like that, anyway? Either you tell me who you’re talking about, or I’m going to need to greet you with the dial tone. And you know I’ll do it, Daddy. So don’t have me press the rooter to the tooter on you. Please and thank you.”
“Here they come! Run, Cleola, run!” It sounded like Daddy was running. “Don’t let ’em get you, Cleola.” I could hear scuffling. “Get off of me! Run, Cleola, run! Get your hands off of me!”
My heart dropped. “Daddy? Daddy? What is going on?”
After several moments of muffled scuffling, it sounded like Daddy’s phone dropped. “Hello? Hello?” I waited a few seconds more then decided to hang up.
Some woman with a British-sounding accent spoke into the phone. “Hello? Is this Spencer Ellington?”
“Uhhh, yeah. Now what the hot fawk are you scavengers, you, you gypsy-pirates, doing to my father, huh?! Are you Cleola?”
“No, no. This is Vivian Lee. I’m part of Doctor Ellington’s traveling medical team.”
My lashes fluttered. “Uh, ohhhkay, Miss Tour Guide. Why are you Village People down there roughhousing with my father? Do I need to call the embassy? Have you brought up on charges?”
“No, no. Not at all. If you’d just let me explain.” She wheezed, sounding as if the air was being wrung out of her lungs.
I sighed, tapping my foot. “Okay, I’m listening. Make it quick. Now how can I help you?”
She took several deep breaths, then slowly said, “Well, um . . . there’s no easy way to say this . . .”
I huffed. “Then say it, please and thank you.”
“It’s your father’s condition. I’m afraid it’s gotten worse . . .”
His condition? I blinked. “Well, you just ought to be afraid, Miss Lady In The Safari, because I have no daggone idea what you are talking about.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She cleared her throat. “I thought you knew. Your father’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s . . .”
“Alztimer what?”
“No, no. Alz. Hei. Mer’s,” she corrected as she enunciated the word like I was some special-needs dumbo who rode a tricycle on three flats. “The doctors here say the disease. . .”
My heart dropped. Disease? Ohsweetheavens. I plopped down on my chaise lounge, reaching for a pack of electronic cigarettes I’d left out on the mini–round table. I pulled one out of its pack, then turned on the LED light. This was too much for my nerves so early in the dang morning. I inhaled. Jeezus! I couldn’t even enjoy watching the sunrise. Or watching the L.A. smog roll over the hills. Oh, these barbarians had no shame. They couldn’t even be decent enough to wait until around noontime to trick my vibe up with this sort of news.
I exhaled. “What kind of disease, Sara Lee?”
“It’s Vivian Lee.”
“Okay,” I said dismissively. “Thank you for the update. But, right now, it’s too early and I’m too grief stricken to care. Now did something wild and nasty bite him out in the jungle? Is there something eating the inside of his brain up? Is that why he has this Alzy-palsy?” My lips quivered as I fired off a round of questions. “Is my daddy going to die? Can’t you give him a shot of penicillin or some nerve gas? Anything to fix him?”
I felt myself getting choked up as she assured me Daddy hadn’t gotten bitten by anything with wings, legs, teeth, or fangs. But he had been bitten by some kind of oldies-but-not-so-goodie brain disease that couldn’t be cured. Everything around me started to spin and I could feel the blood draining from my face as she told me how Daddy’s old-folks condition, this Alzhiney disease, was the sixth leading cause of death.
I gasped, my eyes filled with tears. “So my father’s g-gonna die,” I said in almost a whisper. She tried to give me hope by telling me there were medications that could help Daddy’s quality of life, but it didn’t matter because all I heard was that there was nothing that anyone could do to stop this nasty thing that had gotten ahold of Daddy and would eventually suck the life out of him.
She was talking but her words swirled around in my head, making her sound like a wounded chipmunk. The only things I heard coming out of her mouth that made any sense were: “He’s in stage three . . . he’s forgetting things... he’s repeating himself... misplacing personal effects . . .”
Stage three? “H-h-how many
stages are there?” I asked. Seven, she told me. I breathed a sigh of relief. So he wasn’t slipping on his banana peel just yet. He was going to die a slow death. He still had time.
I blinked. Wait one dingdong minute! If he’s only in stage three, why in heaven’s grace was I on the phone talking to her? I frowned, then pushed out in a rush of agitation, “Why are you getting me all upset and worried about all of this now? At this hour, huh? You have ruined my whole morning. You must not know about me, sweetness! I will Rollerblade up and down your face for try—”
She cut me off. “Miss Ellington, please. I can understand your concern and frustration. But I assure you we’ve done everything we can on this end. We’ve tried to manage Dr. Ellington, but your father’s illness is becoming progressively worse.”
My nose flared. “Listen, Miss Dora the Explorer, I don’t know what type of helter-skelter shenanigans your swamp operation is running down there, but I want to know right now why you’d wait until my father’s practically broke down to call here with this mess. Explain yourself.”
What she told me next knocked the wind from beneath my dang wings. Kitty had known. And Daddy had been refusing medications for over a year, and they’d been speaking to Kitty about his condition. All this time, she knew Daddy’s mind was playing peek-a-boo with reality. And not once did she open her dang litter box to tell me about it.
“We last spoke to Mrs.—well, now Ms.—Ellington, about seven months ago, advising her then that we thought it best your father return home . . .”
I blinked.
“At that time she made it very clear she wasn’t interested. That we should find Dr. Ellington a nursing home with an ocean view somewhere here in the hills, but for us to keep him here. And we haven’t heard from her since.”
I was hotter than a volcano. That no-good, dirty litter box! How dare she do that! Ooh, you just wait until I lay my hands—I mean, my eyes—on her! I’m going to give it to her good!
“He’s already wandered off twice, causing us to send out search parties to look for him. And this is his third incident. We can’t keep doing this. The last time he wandered off we found him four days later down in a watering hole. Thankfully, it was dried up. And this time, we found your father about twenty minutes ago, after a two-day search, in one of the Kenyan villages three hours away, dancing naked.”
I almost threw up in the back of my mouth at the visual of Daddy flapping around in his loincloth doing a jungle striptease. I took two frantic puffs from my cigarette, then put it out and flicked it over the terrace as if it were a real cigarette.
I fought back a batch of fresh tears. If Daddy could no longer ride the blue skies in hot-air balloons, wrestle alligators in mud-slick rivers, dance with buffalo and count wildebeests and mate with Mother Nature . . . If he had to stop tongue-lapping in the Fountain of Youth and doing what he loved most because of some ole raggedy illness, then she was right. Daddy needed to come home. I swallowed, willing myself to stay calm and focused despite my insides shaking like a salt shaker.
My lips quivered. “I’ll have our private jet come get him.” I asked for her number and wrote it down. Then told her I’d have the house manager call back with the rest of the details. I overheard Daddy screaming in the background, “Run, Cleola Mae. They’re coming for you!”
Then the call ended. I tried calling back but kept getting a busy signal. I wiped my eyes with the back of my sleeve. Scrolled through my cell and quickly dialed our pilot, Stanley. I told him that it was time for him to spread his wings and swoop down on the Masai Mara in Kenya to get Daddy. He was coming home.
Daddy is coming home, I repeated in my head, closing my eyes as I ended the call. Sweetpeachlickers! I took several deep breaths. I didn’t know anything about this All-timers disease, but it sounded mean and nasty. And if it was causing Daddy to lose his mind, dancing around naked in villages and calling me some dang Cleola, then it had to be something terribly awful.
I opened my eyes and tried to remember if I’d ever really known Daddy. I didn’t have to think long. I didn’t. Not really. I knew more about Kitty than I did him. That she was messy and hateful and ruthless. That she was an ole nasty cougar that stalked boy-toys in schoolyards, then mauled at their man parts. That she was a nasty hot-box, gold-digging tramp who threw her kitty up in the lap of a desperate man who was forty-two years older than her, spawned an heir to his fortunes, then screwed her way to success. I knew all this about Kitty. But Kitty didn’t know a thing about me.
But Daddy did. At least he used to. Now, he could barely remember who the heck he was talking to. Something inside of me snapped and I started hyperventilating and crying all over again. Because, aside from last year’s holiday visit, my interaction with Daddy—over the last three years—had been limited to phone calls, postcards, the occasional one-page letter, at times Skype, and tons of gifts.
Now, after almost three dang years of being footloose and fancy-free, chanting and yodeling through the tropics, he was finally coming home. But I wasn’t all that excited about it. How could I be? He wasn’t coming home because he wanted to. Noooo. He was coming back here because he had to. And he wasn’t even coming back here for me. Nooo. He was coming back here because he was being forced to. And that had my nerves fried and scrambled hard. I didn’t know what to expect when Daddy arrived. But one diggity-dingdong thing I knew for certain. I was frightened out of my lace panties of what I would see when he walked through the door. And I was even more petrified of what I’d do when he did.
I had less than forty-eight hours to get Daddy’s wing of the house in order. But, first things first, the minute Kitty walked through these doors, I was going to butter her biscuits real good, then drag her through the muggahfuggin’ gotdangit gutter!
4
Heather
“Cuuuuuut!” Philippe Pinelle, famed reality TV director, screamed like a beyotch as he stormed through my room and pushed the cameraman who stood over my bed.
I looked him over and instead of serving him with a dropkick to his throat, I snuggled back into my pillow and closed my eyes.
This dude was trippin’. Hard.
First of all: It was eleven a.m.
Eleven. a.m. in the crunked-up, mothersuckin’ mornin’!
Monday mornin’!
Like, word?
Really?
What did he think this was? Run’s House?
Second of all: I had enough of people telling me what to do. I once had my own television show—the Wu-Wu Tanner Show, one of the hottest teen shows there’d ever been—that was stolen from up underneath me thanks to Spencer not minding her business and turning state’s evidence against me by having me arrested for throwing myself a fabulous get-right, get-tight Skittles celebration with the rest of my pill-popping buddies. So what if the drugs were illegal? So what if my people had rummaged through their grannies heart medication? We were having fun. That was what life was all about! I was a good time party girl. I was sick of these mud rats tryna snatch my vibe and sabotage me. These hoes ain’t never been loyal. And don’t know how to be.
Anyway, now I’m stuck doing this ridiculous reality show because tricks stayed hating on me. Like it was my fault that I was a star.
And prettier than the rest of them. My chocolate eyes were shaped like an ancient Egyptian’s. My hair was Sicilian thick and full of sandy brown coils. My skin was deep bronze, or more like a white girl baked by the Caribbean sun. So what if I didn’t look black or white? Why they hating on me? It’s not my fault they can’t be me.
“No! No! No!” Phillipe carried on, pacing from one end of the room to the other, as sweat dripped down his temples and melted his foundation, turning his white linen scarf dull peach. “What don’t you all understand?! Did you not get the script?” He paused and his eyes scanned the room for an answer.
He must have been on drugs.
Philippe clapped his hands. “Get it together, people! Camille cannot be the only professional around here!”
“She’s already rehearsed her part!”
Rehearsed? Part? What part?
He carried on. “And though it was a struggle for her, she’s agreed to play the role of the control freak.”
Play the role? That’s who my mother is. I opened one eye and arched a brow.
“And for added measure, she’s even agreed to stroll in here in a white gown and matted mink slippers, with a drink in her hand.”
Added measure? That’s her morning glory!
He squealed, flinging peach sweat from his forehead. “Classic! Magnificent! Do you know what that will mean for ratings?”
What the...
Was he serious with this? Camille always waltzed in here in her raggedy uniform with her sunup round of scotch in her hand. This mofo was stupid. He had to be. And obviously he didn’t read the blogs or research Hollywood’s wayward drunk.
Whatever! This was supposed to be a reality show, not a flippin’ sitcom! And I wasn’t agreeing to be scripted. So for-real-for-real, this creep, his scripts, and his cameramen could all line up and each take turns kissing the new crack of my . . .
Wait.
I sat up and looked at the clock again: eleven fifteen a.m.
Monday.
A school day.
I haven’t been at Hollywood High yet. Drop a few squats and show the Pampered Trolls how boss I’d become.
And yeah, I’m sure they’d watched Co-Co and me rip ’em on that YouTube video. After all, “Put Your Diamonds Up” was the craze I’d forecast it to be. But the Pampered Princesses had yet to experience the new me . . . live and in concert.
I hopped out of bed and Philippe lost his mind. “What are you doing? Where are you going?! Camille is supposed to drag you out of bed! Camille is supposed to snatch the covers off of you! And you’re supposed to jump in her face and try and knock her to the floor! Get back in that bed now!”
I didn’t even respond to him; instead I raced into my en suite bathroom.
Showered.
Dressed in leopard skinny jeans, a white tank top, a denim midriff vest, and black leather, peep-toe, four-inch shoe boots.
