by Meta Smith
“Sometimes . . . sometimes I feel like the world would be better off if I hadn’t been born. Mami wanted to become a doctor, she used to say so all the time, but couldn’t on account of having me. She used to always talk about how far along in school she would be if I hadn’t been born.”
‘’I’m glad you were born.” Sparks smiled. Desiree smiled back.
“So was my papi. I was Papi’s pride and joy. Papi was a hustler if there ever was one. He did whatever he had to do to provide for me and Mami. It’s not like I remember it all, but you know, people talk. They say he used to do petty shit like snatch chains and steal cars, but then his best friend got killed in a robbery and he just put the shit down. Just like that. And dig this, he became a garbageman!” Dez laughed.
“He used to stink to high heaven every time he came home. I was only like seven when he died, but I do remember that smell just like it was yesterday. It fucks me up because I can’t walk past a Dumpster without missing my papi.” Dez smiled at the memory.
“Yo, garbagemen make good money!” Sparks kidded. “Plus, they get first dibs on all the good stuff people throwaway. I used to watch that TV show Roc about that garbageman.”
“You so crazy!” Dez giggled, then continued with a sigh. “Yeah, Roc was cheap, but Papi was generous. If I asked for a dollar for some ice cream, he’d break me off with five instead. He always told me that anything I ever needed in life, he would provide. I would never have to count on any man but him for anything until I got married. He constantly told me how pretty I was and lavished me with toys, stuffed animals, dolls, and other trinkets. He was the first man to spoil me, and I knew how to work it. He set the standard for every man I ever thought about seriously in my life.”
“Your father sounds like he was a good man,” Sparks said.
“Yeah, he was a good man. But one night he took a walk to the little corner store and a car ran him down and kept on going. It turns out the driver was high off PCP and thought he was in a rocket ship and shit. He crashed a few blocks down the street. He ended up in a wheelchair and in jail, but fuck it, the damage was already done. My father was dead, and my moms was only like twenty-five then and had never worked. All of a sudden she’s got to hold it down for herself and me.”
“I’m sorry,” Sparks said.
“It’s okay. The one thing that gives me comfort about Papi’s death is that he made his peace with the Lord when he was alive. My family was really religious. My papi and I used to go to church all the time. On Wednesday nights we would go to Bible study at his church in Harlem, a Baptist church. The kind of church that had a choir so strong that you thought they would blow the roof off the church when they sang. Then sometimes he came with me and Mami to mass, because Mami was Catholic and she made me go to confession and get baptized a Catholic and everything. Papi didn’t care, as long as I knew about the Lord and how good He was. He taught me how to pray and what it meant to be saved. I was really young, but those are things about Papi I can never forget. I tried to so many times. From the time I left home, I tried to erase every bit of scripture I’d ever heard from my head. When I lost Papi, I lost my faith. But like I’ve heard some folks say, if you train a child up in the right path, he won’t stray from it. Or something like that. Anyway, my papi was saved, so I know that he is in heaven.” Sparks said nothing; he only smiled encouragingly, so Dez continued her story.
“If he was alive, maybe my life would be totally different. Maybe I’d be a doctor, or even a teacher or something. Maybe Mami would have had a chance to be a better parent. My dad had a few benefits with his job, so we had a little something to live off for a while. But I think it just got to be too much for Mami. She couldn’t keep up the note on our little crib in Queens. So she swallowed her pride, and we went to my grandparents’ for a minute, but that didn’t really work out. My mom was different after all that shit happened. She only cared about kicking it. She was always in the streets with her friends, fucking with this nigga and that nigga. Not taking care of me and shit. My grandma got real sick, and my grandfather said my mother had to change her ways or bounce, so she bounced. She left me with them and did her thing, even though her parents were old and sick. She didn’t even care about me. Finally, when my grandparents were both in the hospital, my mother came back and got me. It was only because she didn’t have a choice, though. They both died soon after that. That was the last time I can actually remember feeling loved and loving someone in return no matter what. I thank God that I had my dad and my grandparents, even if it wasn’t for that long.”
“That’s a good way to look at it, Dez. You were blessed to have them. But I know you can’t help but think about all the things you didn’t have. Mothers are important to daughters. They teach them how to be women,” Sparks reasoned.
“Yeah, but it’s a good thing I learned from her how not to be instead
of how to be.”
“So things didn’t go so well when she came back?” Sparks asked. “Nah. When Mami came back, she had a job and a fiance named
Ernesto. Ernesto wasn’t shit. He just mooched off of her. He didn’t work, at least not a real job, he drank like a fish, he was fat and sloppy and disgusting. I don’t know what she saw in him. At least I didn’t for a while, but when you grow up in New York, you learn fast. It didn’t take me too long–maybe I was like eleven–to figure out that my mother was on that shit. She was sniffing coke, and guess who was giving it to her? Ernesto. He was a do-boy for his brother Lou, who was running things uptown, so he always had a stash available.”
“Dominican Lou?”
“Yeah, you know about him?” Dez asked.
“Uh, yeah, I heard of him,” Sparks stammered. Dominican Lou had been one of the most feared drug lords uptown during the late eighties and early nineties. Everyone had heard of him.
“Well, indirectly, he’s the source of my problems.”
“I guess so,” Sparks said, but he didn’t necessarily agree with her logic. “I know that no one made her sniff coke,” Dez replied, nearly reading
his mind. “And if Ernesto and Lou weren’t slanging, she’d have gotten it from somewhere else. But still. He’s got some kind of accountability,” Dez stated, vexed.
“She was just all the way out there. It got to the point where he could control her with that shit, heart, body, and mind. He treated her like shit. He was always telling her she wasn’t shit, and occasionally, he’d kick her ass. She just took it. She never complained, she never stood up for herself. It was like she liked it.”
“Your mom probably didn’t like it. Some women just aren’t strong enough to leave. I’m not taking her side or anything. Don’t get me wrong. But to understand your life, you’ve gotta understand all the sides. You feel me?” Sparks looked at her with compassion.
“I understand what you’re saying. But how could she choose him over me?”
“It wasn’t her. It was the coke.”
“How could she choose coke over me? Didn’t she realize what she was doing? Didn’t she care?”
“I’m sure she did. Anyone would be a fool not to care about you.” Sparks looked at her with soft eyes. An awkward silence.
“Anyway, Ernesto eventually started in on me. I was like eight or nine when he started talking to me crazy. He used to call me the abortion that
got away, and say shit like I should have been in a rubber or swallowed or in a tissue instead of born. He constantly told me I wasn’t shit, that I wasn’t gonna be shit. Then when I was eleven, I started to develop. I still looked like a little girl, but I was starting to get breasts, and my ass started plumping up, and that’s when Ernesto started touching me. To make a long story short, my mother ended up in jail, and I ended up in foster care.” “Damn.” Sparks shook his head in disbelief. “Your stepfather molested
you?”
“Yeah,” Desiree sniffed.
“That’s not your fault, you know.” Sparks wished silently that he could find the asshole and show him what r
eal abuse was.
“Yeah, but my mother blamed me.”
“But you know she wasn’t right. It wasn’t your fault. He was the grown up. He was supposed to know better!” Sparks yelled, trying to convince her.
“I guess you’re right,” Dez admitted.
“Damn straight I’m right.” Sparks began to calm down a little. “But what happened to your stepfather?”
Dez hesitated. “I can trust you, right?” she asked, her hazel eyes filled with worry.
“Of course,” Sparks reassured her.
“I killed him. One night shit got really ugly. He raped me and damn near killed me. Somehow I managed to kill him instead. It was self-defense. I just wanted him to stop.” Dez poured herself a shot of cognac and gulped it down quickly. She grimaced at the aftertaste.
“Serves the bastard right! He’s in hell now where he belongs,” Sparks said, but he knew his words would never soothe the wounded little girl still inside of Dez. Simultaneously, he also was impressed by the fact that she was no doubt a rider, a survivor. She was fine enough and smart enough to be wifey material, and she definitely had thug appeal. Despite her troubled past, Sparks saw Dez as the perfect woman.
“Come here.” Sparks reached out for Dez. Meekly, she scooted her chair toward him. Too ashamed to face him, she stared at her feet. Sparks placed his arm around her shoulder, and Dez allowed herself to surrender. She buried her face in the crook of his arm. Sparks cradled her and let her sob softly while he stroked her hair. Dez looked up at him, her face swollen and puffy.
“Do you think less of me now?” she asked him.
“No, not at all. I think more of you now,” Sparks told her, kissing her on the forehead. Dez looked up at Sparks and wiped her tear-streaked
face.
“I guess I look pretty terrible.” She laughed halfheartedly.
“Nah. You’re beautiful, Dez,” he told her. In that moment Sparks knew he’d crossed the line. He couldn’t hold back what he was feeling any longer. “Dez, you’re one of the most beautiful women in the world. That’s why I chose you for the video.”
“You?” Dez was surprised.
“Yeah. I made the casting decision. Me and B used to see you in the videos, and we’d always talk about how fine you were and how we were gonna get you in one of our videos. We even used to joke about which one of us would get with you.”
Dez’s face dropped at that revelation. “So what, you all just assumed I’d naturally get with one of you? Y’all thought I was a typical video ho, huh?” she asked him with attitude.
“No. That’s not what I meant. I meant that we both saw something special in you. The difference is I’m willing to accept you the way that you are. Dez, I’m willing to love you the way that you are.” Sparks stared into her eyes. “Is Bentley?”
Dez was astounded.
“Bentley doesn’t appreciate you. He’s not really down for you, Dez.” Sparks held Dez slightly away from himself, bent down, and kissed her.
Dez broke their embrace. “Y’all are brothers!” she protested.
“I love you, Dez. Let me love you. Forget about what everyone will think or say. Me and B will always be brothers. Our being together can’t change that. Let me give you everything that you deserve, everything you ever dreamed of. Let me love you, baby,” he murmured softly as he kissed her gently. Dez felt herself becoming light-headed. Sparks was so fine and powerful. It was he, not Bentley, who had made her dreams come true. She owed him whatever he wanted; he was making her a star.
Besides, he had a point. Bentley didn’t appreciate her. He’d talked such a good game, and at the first sign of trouble he had bounced. Sparks saw her talent, and now he knew about her history and still wanted her. When would she have an opportunity like this again, to know that someone knew her, her issues, and yet still wanted to love her? More than the fame and the glory, Dez realized that more than anything, what she wanted was to be loved.
Dez found herself surrendering to his embrace and the urgency of his tongue when he slipped it into her mouth. Her clothing along with Sparks’s quickly ended up in a heap on the floor of the studio. Sparks interrupted their passion as he cued a track on the mixing board. Then
he carefully lifted her up and carried her into the sound booth. A sensual melody filled the room commingled with the sighs and moans of making love.
“I love you, Dez!” Sparks shouted as he climaxed deep within her. “Ooh, I love you too, Bentley.” She sighed and shivered with pleasure.
Immediately, she felt like an asshole and burst into tears. “I am so sorry. I don’t know what to say,” she said as she felt him shrivel like a prune.
“There’s nothing to say except I guess it’s true when they say you can’t help who you fall in love with.” Sparks looked crestfallen as he began to put on his clothes.
Tears fell down Dez’s face. How could she be so stupid? She was rebounding from Bentley, and Sparks was family. Now she had gone and fucked up the only relationship in her life that she could count on. And she’d told him her deepest, darkest secret.
“Baby girl, don’t cry,” Sparks cooed. “It was wrong of me to come at you like this when you were vulnerable. I feel more fucked-up than you do. Sex isn’t what you need, Dez. It’s love. And I love you. So I’m willing to let this go however you want it to go. We can pretend it didn’t happen, or we can try to move on from this and maybe try and build something real. Don’t try to decide now and don’t feel bad, baby. Let’s just get some sleep and start again fresh tomorrow.”
Sparks’s words didn’t make Dez feel any better. She felt dirty. No matter what she revealed to a man, no matter how honest or how phony she was, they were all after only one thing. She thought that things would change once she made some money, but her money problems had been long gone and still men only seemed to want to use her. She had a little power now. She had, after all, been able to use what she’d had–good looks, a few dollars, and a whole lot of dreams–to get what she wanted: a record deal. Yet she wanted more.
Dez finally understood what Ginger had been trying to tell her a couple of years ago. It wasn’t enough to be able to walk into a store and have the ability to buy whatever her heart desired. It wasn’t enough to be able to incite the desires of men and motivate them to provide for her. It even wasn’t enough to have fans eagerly awaiting her words. Dez wanted to be able to walk the streets with her head held high, despite any scandal or controversy and without the aid of a publicist or media trainer. She yearned to have people look up to her, not because she was a star, but because they believed that she was smart and could be a catalyst for positive change. She wanted to be able to look in the mirror and not feel dirty or tainted or inferior simply because her circumstances growing up
had been less than ideal. She wanted to feel clean. Dez wanted respect.
CHAPTER 19
T
HE NEXT DAY AND FOR WEEKS AFTERWARD, SPARKS and Dez went about their business status quo. It was if their tryst
had never taken place. There were no awkward silences, no tension between them. Dez was glad because she couldn’t bear to lose her new “big brother” and didn’t want her career to be a casualty of the war on her emotions. Besides, working on the album and promoting the single had them too busy to let the incident stand in the way of business.
Still, Dez couldn’t deny that she had feelings for Sparks, because he was everything that Bentley was and then some. Yet her feelings for Bentley were just as strong as when they’d first met. How was this possible? Dez began to wonder if she had the capacity to be faithful. She’d had every intention of being true to Bentley, but she couldn’t get past the hurdle of revealing herself to him. The fact that she had entrusted the story of her past to Sparks had to mean something, didn’t it? Maybe it was just that she’d had the opportunity to get to know Sparks a little before revealing her story to him.
Whatever it was, Dez hoped that her feelings of being torn would subside quickly. Her stomach seemed
like it was constantly in a knot, and her appetite was unpredictable; at times she could eat a horse, at others she could barely finish a salad. And she was drinking and smoking weed way too much. Sparks chalked it up to being a part of the “creative
process,” but Dez was always afraid that she was genetically predisposed to addictive behavior, and found herself fearing the worst: that she’d turn out just like her mother. But her fear wasn’t bad enough to make her stop, and that scared her even more. Her personal life was out of control.
Her career was a dream. The sales of the single were excellent; it debuted at number 1, and after a mere week on the charts, it was certified platinum. The controversy surrounding Dez’s history with Dan, and Ysenia’s big mouth, had only served to fuel the demand for the product, just as Sparks had predicted. Fortunately, an injunction had been filed barring any further sales of the Sinful Strippers tape. It was snatched from the shelves immediately, and Sparks had a team of cybersurfing interns alerting lawyers to file suits against the myriad Web sites claiming to have the tape available for download. Sparks warned her that they wouldn’t be able to catch everyone–people who already owned the tape, for example, would probably pass it around–but with felony charges of child pornography associated with owning the tape, those numbers would remain small.
