by Hazel Mills
Chapter 9
Nikki
I was really beginning to worry about my little sister. I couldn’t remember the last time that Shannon and I had spent any time together. It was becoming increasingly difficult to get her on the phone and, if by chance, I were lucky enough to catch her, the call would be short and vague, at best.
According to Sabrina, Shannon was partying like an animal on campuses all over DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
“Girl, you, and your sister are as different as night and day.” “What do you mean? “ I asked Sabrina.
“I mean that last weekend I was at a house party over at Bowie, and Shannon was there. The weekend before that, I saw her riding in the car with a bunch of guys in Richmond.”
Damn, my little sister was getting around a lot more than I could believe. Is this what years of living in the house with my father had done to her?
“Wait a minute, Sabrina. How do you know all of this? What were you doing in all of those places?”
“What the hell do you mean?” Sabrina asked, defensively.
“Well, why were you in Richmond?”
“Bitch, I have a car and can go wherever the fuck I want to. If your nosey ass must know, I was at Bowie because I was invited. I was running some errands for my Aunt Charlotte who lives in
Richmond, or have you forgotten?”
For a minute, the fact that Sabrina’s aunt lived in Richmond had slipped my mind. I was so focused on Shannon; a lot of things were eluding me.
“I’m sorry, Sabrina. I really am. I wasn’t…”
“You wasn’t what? Accusing me of being a runaround ho?” “No!” I defended.
“Yeah, sure,” Sabrina said as she rolled her dark eyes.
Runaround ho’? Is that what people think of Shannon? Has her reputation become so blemished?
“Girl, you know that I would never think anything like that about you. I honestly forgot about your aunt. I am just overwhelmed with worry about Shannon,” I explained, apologetically.
Sabrina looked at me for a minute, rolled her eyes again, and sucked her teeth. She then flashed a wide smile that was filled with what appeared to be a million bright and shiny braces on her pearly white teeth. I knew she had forgiven me. One of the things that I loved about Sabrina was her ability to understand me and then to quickly move on to the next moment. She never dwelled on the past even if it was only five minutes ago.
“You should be worried about her. You know people are talking a lot of shit about her, too,” she explained.
“People like who? What are they saying?”
“I’ve heard some guys on our campus say some stuff but you don’t really want me to repeat what I’ve heard. There is no way your little virgin ears could handle it.”
Oh my God! Sabrina won’t repeat it! It must be more awful than I thought.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Sabrina asked with concern in her voice and a frown on her yellow round face.
“A while ago.”
“Listen, why don’t you call her and invite her to go with us today. That way you’ll get to spend some time with her and hopefully find out what the hell is going on. We could swing by and pick her up on the way.”
Sabrina had invited me to go to an author book signing with her at a mall over in PG County, Maryland. She was extremely excited about a new author she had quickly become a huge fan of and couldn’t stop talking about since reading the book. She had made plans to attend this signing when she learned about it three months ago.
“Ooh, that’s a good idea. Thanks for offering. I’ll call her right now.”
I called Shannon and I was surprised and excited when she agreed to go and hang out with us for an afternoon. I’d invited her to spend the weekend with me here at the house several times over the past few months but she would always decline.
When Sabrina’s Hyundai pulled in front of Shannon’s dorm, she was standing out front, hugged up with a man who looked to be twice her age. I got the feeling that he’d seen the inside of a jail cell a time or two. At least four thick gold chains adorned the neck of his white wife beater. His baggy jeans held a pager on each of the front pockets.
Why does someone need two pagers? I know that he ain’t no doctor with that many gold teeth in his mouth.
It was mid-afternoon and he was still sporting a doo rag. Something about Shannon wasn’t quite right either. She had
never been a thick girl but now she looked thinner than usual.
Paper-thin. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
What is going on with her? She looks sick.
“See what I mean?” Sabrina said, her hazel eyes peering over the top of her black sunglasses. She blew the horn.
“Break that shit up,” Sabrina yelled out of the car window.
The man waved one hand in our direction and smacked Shannon on the behind with the other as she walked away.
“Hey y’all. What’s up?” Shannon said, as she climbed into the back seat.
“Who the fuck was that?” Sabrina quickly asked. Subtlety was never one of her strong points.
“Oh girl, that’s Bone,” Shannon replied, fastening her seatbelt and loudly popping her gum.
“Bone?” Who’s Bone? How do you know him? Does he go to Howard?” I inquired.
“Does Bone sound like the name of someone who’d go to Howard, Nikki? Plus, he looks old enough to be all of our daddies,” Sabrina said, sarcastically. “He ain’t no damn student.”
I glanced at Sabrina with a “let me handle this” look on my face. Sabrina easily read it and winked in agreement.
“I met him out.”
“Out? Out where?”
“At a party.”
“What party?” I asked. I had become very annoyed with Shannon and her short ass answers. She knew what I wanted to know, and was being purposefully difficult and vague. This was the same game Shannon played with my parents whenever she didn’t want to be bothered with their questions or hear their advice. She usually became more compliant after one of my father’s open-handed slaps stung her cheek.
“What the fuck difference does it make, Nikki? I left my mama in Alabama or have you forgotten?” Shannon defended.
“It makes a big difference, little girl,” Sabrina interrupted even though she had agreed not to. She peered at Shannon through the rear view mirror as she drove. “You up here in DC running around with just about any and every guy in the tri-state area, like you know what the hell you’re doing. You don’t know shit. Any one of these trifling motherfuckers could have your green Alabama ass raped and cut up like Swiss cheese and left for dead in an alley.”
Although Sabrina’s description of my little sister’s behavior was harsh and vividly animated, it was true. I knew that Shannon dramatically needed to slow her roll before something horrible happened to her.
“Whatever, Sabrina. You don’t know shit about me to be talking to me like that,” Shannon responded to Sabrina’s scolding.
Why is Shannon scratching like that?
“I know more about your skank ass than you think I do,
Shannon.”
“Skank? Bitch who you talking to?”
“Bitch?” Sabrina pulled over to the side of the road and put the car in park. I knew that things had truly gotten out of control.
“You, Sabrina! I’m calling you a bitch! Sitting up here talking to me like I’m a dog!”
“Get the fuck out of my car, bitch!”
“Wait a minute, Sabrina. You can’t put her out here. What about the book signing?” I interrupted.
“Oh you and I are still going to the book signing, Nikki. Ain’t nothing changed that. But your little sister gots to get the hell up and out right here, right now. Ain’t no fucking crackhead gonna ride in my goddamn car and call me a bitch.” Crackhead? Could that be it? Shannon is on drugs?
“Shannon, apologize,” I demanded.
“Fuck this,” Shannon said as she got out of the car and slammed the
door shut. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. My sister and my best friend were at each other’s throats and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Truth is, I agreed with Sabrina.
“Let her go. I’m sure one of her tricks probably lives nearby anyway. She’ll be fine,” Sabrina calmly said, pulling away from the curb. “Plus, we’re already five minutes behind schedule and I don’t want to be late. I’ve waited too long for this event to have your skank ass sister fuck it up for me.”
“Sabrina! That’s my sister.”
“Oh, Nikki, please. Grow up. Shannon sure has. Fuck her. If she is going to make what she thinks are grown woman decisions then she needs to experience grown woman consequences.”
I stayed quiet for the remainder of the ride. It was obvious that Shannon was making choices that were definitely going to lead her down a tragic road but I didn’t know what to do to change that. She was right about one thing. I am not her mother. But that didn’t stop me from feeling responsible for her. I’ve always felt responsible for her, even when we were little girls. As the oldest, I tried to bear the brunt of the abuse in a feeble attempt to keep Shannon and my other sister safe. I did whatever my father wanted, whenever he wanted because I never wanted them to know the pain.
Maybe leaving home after high school was a mistake. Was Shannon’s behavior because she was abused after I left? Did I do this to her?
All of these questions and a ton more drag raced through my mind as I sat waiting for the author to come out.
“Stop sitting over there beating yourself up, Nikki,” Sabrina leaned over and whispered in my ear.
“What?”
“You are sitting there thinking about Shannon and how you are responsible for her outrageous ass behavior, aren’t you?”
“How’d you know?”
“Because your face is all scrunched up like you’re trying to pass a bowling ball. You do that when you’re worried.”
Sabrina knew me all too well. We had only been friends for a short time but Sabrina knew me better sometimes than I think I knew myself.
“Stop worrying and have a good time,” she comforted.
“Shannon will be just fine.”
I hope Sabrina is right.
Just as I flashed Sabrina a quick smile, the author came out to a thunderous applause of all of her adoring fans, including Sabrina, holding their copies of Mama and Disappearing Acts, waiting to have them signed. I had never heard of Terry McMillan but apparently, I had been living under a rock because the crowd gave her a celebrity welcome. I found myself caught up in the excitement of the crowd over what I realized was a literary phenomenon. I loved to read but the only books I read, besides those required for a class, were the cheesy Harlequin romance novels because that’s what my mother read because that was what her mother read. As I listened to Ms. McMillan talk briefly with the readers about her books and her journey as a writer, I decided that I would purchase and have her sign my own copy of Disappearing Acts. It sounded like a great book. Besides, all of these people crowded into this little bitty bookstore must be on to something.
I’ve never met an author before.
“I don’t understand how you can call yourself an educated Black woman and have never heard of Terry McMillan or Toni Morrison or Gloria Naylor,” Sabrina chastised on the drive back to campus.
“The only books in our house were the Bible and my mother’s romance novels. What you don’t seem to realize, Sabrina, is that my family didn’t get out much. Book signings were something for rich white people.”
“Forget getting out. Did y’all have a television? Did you ever go to the damn library?”
“Ha ha heifer, yes, we had a television and I went to the library. There wasn’t a huge African American section in it if there was even one at all.”
“Well, I’m glad that I found your ass before you got any more ignorant.”
“Excuse me? Did you just call me ignorant?”
Sabrina laughed heartily. Truth be told, I was glad we had found each other as well. We had a connection that I just didn’t have with my sisters. Sabrina seemed to get me from the first moment we met. Her humorous honesty was one of the things that I loved most about her.
“Girl, I can’t wait until Terry’s latest book, The Interruption of Everything,” Sabrina said, before pulling into the KFC drive thru. “I know that it is going to be the bomb.
