by Ni-Ni Simone
“Excuse me?” I said, taken aback. “Making moves doing what?”
“Minding my business,” he snapped. “Now look, I’ma be home later tonight.”
“Tonight! I need you home now. I need you to see about the kids.”
“Lately, I’m always with them kids. I swear, you and that li’l rap dude are taking advantage of me. Come on, give me a break!”
“I wanna go out for once and now you’re complaining about you’re always with them! Ny’eem, I oughta punch you in the face!”
“Man, please.”
“I’m always with those kids!” I screamed.
“Well, then it shouldn’t be that hard for you to be with them today, because I’m not gon’ be home.” And he clicked off.
I clicked back over and screamed at the top of my lungs! I could hear Naja scrambling with the phone. “What the hell was that?!” she spat. “I think you just broke my eardrum.”
“He said he’s not coming home!”
“What?” she said. “He’s moving out?”
“No, I mean today.”
“He’s moving out for a day? Huh? I’m confused.”
I blew out a slow string of air. “Ahhhh!!!!!” I screamed again. “Dang, Naja, he can’t babysit.”
“Well damn, you can calm down. That’s all you had to say in the first place. All that other stuff was extra.”
“Anyway…”
“Yeah, anyway, what you gon’ do?”
“Uhmmmm…” I shook my head. “Can you…?”
“Can I what?”
“Maybe, like baby—”
“Oh no, I’m sorry. I don’t do kids.”
Before I could respond, my other line beeped. I looked at the caller ID and it was Haneef. “Hold on,” I sighed. “Hello.”
“Dang, Li’l Ma,” Haneef said. “Why you sound like somebody just robbed you?”
“Because they did.”
“Huh?” he said, put off.
“Look, Haneef…I can’t go. My brother just said he can’t keep the kids—”
“What kids? I thought you said you didn’t have any children.”
“Children? I don’t have any children. I mean my sisters and brother.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Uhm…working…yeah…at the…at the…bus station.”
“Bus station?” I could hear the confusion in his voice. “I thought she was a nurse?”
Damn, I forgot that lie. “Yeah, that’s what I mean. And my dad—”
“Isn’t he dead?”
Dang, how the heck did I forget that, too? This lying was a hot mess. “Look, the bottom line is I can’t go because there’s no one here to keep my sisters and brother, and I can’t leave them home alone.”
“Bring them with you.”
“Excuse me?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Say that again.”
“Bring them with you. It’ll be fun. Instead of flying to Miami, I’ll tell the pilot that we’ll go to Disney World.”
“Are you serious?”
“Elite,” he said, sounding sweet as ever, “it’s cool. Bring them.”
“Oh…uhmmm…”
“I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“Haneef…”
“I’m serious. Just get them dressed.”
“Are you sure?”
“What did I just say?”
“Alright. How long before you come?”
“An hour—so hurry up.”
I wasn’t sure if I said bye when I clicked off or not. And I was sure Naja had hung up, so I didn’t even bother to call her back. Instead, I ran into the bedroom and screamed, “Get up!” The twins stirred and I pulled the covers off them. “Get up! We have somewhere to go.”
“Where?!”
“Disney World!”
They jumped out of bed and started screaming.
I ran in my mother’s room that she never occupied and woke up Mica.
“Mica!”
He jumped up and the sheet he loved to hang on to wrapped around his body like a tape.
“Help me,” he mumbled.
I untangled him. “We’re getting’ ready to go.”
“Go where?”
“Disney World.”
“Hot damn!”
I balled up my fist. “What I tell you about cussin’?!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You better be. Now get up. We’re going out.”
Forty-five minutes later the kids were in short sets and sweaters. I had on a pair of cargo capris and a matching tee.
By the time we walked to the entrance of the building, every crackhead who lined the hall looked at us like we’d lost our minds. “It’s cold outside,” my mother said as she seemed to emerge from nowhere.
“I know,” I snapped, trying my best to move past her.
“We’re going to Disney World,” Mica said.
Gary, who was standing beside my mother, fell out laughing. “You sure they ain’t gettin’ high?” And as usual, it was on.
“What I tell you about my kids?” my mother screamed. And we left them standing there.
It was cold outside and maybe we should’ve put on some jeans, but so what? We were going to Disney World, some place we’d only seen in magazines.
“Looka hear, my man.” Mica said, shivering cold, as Haneef’s driver opened the back door to his Hummer. “Next time, come get us from the house. We shouldn’t have to walk all the way down here. It’s cold out here. Smell me?”
“Shut up!” I said tight-lipped, and mushed him slightly in the back of his head.
“You must be Mica,” Haneef smiled as Mica slid in the truck.
“Haneef!” Sydney jumped up and down. “Oh, my God!!!!! Wait ’til I call the girls in my class: Kennesha, Donnesha, Tamika, Theresa, Jona, Octavia—”
“See,” Aniyah did her best to whisper. “I told you she wasn’t lying.”
“Funny,” I grimaced. “And I told you all that you better behave, and don’t talk too much—”
“Chill,” Haneef laughed, seemingly getting a kick out of them. “They’re alright.”
“Yeah,” Sydney snapped. “Didn’t we leave Mommy in the hallway?”
Oh…kay. I saw I was gonna have to handle this crew. Maybe bringing them with me was a bad idea. “Be quiet,” I pointed. “Now look out the window.”
“Ill,” Sydney whispered loudly. “She actin’ real stank.”
I looked at them and shot them such a serious evil eye, it’s a wonder I didn’t burn a hole through their chests.
“Okay,” Sydney said, waving her hands in defeat. “We get it, we get it.”
“Fa’ real,” Aniyah added. “No need in being all extra.”
Once we were all in the car and on our way to the airport, Haneef asked, “So have you guys ever been on a plane before?” He slyly pulled me next to him by my belt loop and draped his arm over my shoulder. Oh…he felt so good.
After talking about how this was going to be our first plane ride, we laughed at some of Haneef’s corny jokes, Sydney did what she could to secure herself a record deal, and I had to threaten Aniyah when she wanted to tell Haneef how much of a fan of his I really was.
Before we knew it, we were at a small airport in New York, ready to board the small chartered plane.
“Elite,” Mica whispered as he pulled the hem of my shirt. “I wanna ask you something.”
“What?”
“Sydney said that when it rains, that’s people peein’ outta airplanes. So you think we’ll have time to change the weather from a bright sunny day to a stormy one?”
I did all could to not fall out laughing. “Mica, don’t believe that.”
“It’s not true?!” he said in disbelief.
“No.”
Tears filled his eyes. “So I drank all this water for nothing?” he said, exhausted. “I’m so tired of being lied to.”
When we boarded the plane, it resembled something out of a magazine, or better yet, som
ething off MTV Cribs, just in the air and not on the ground.
There were about ten beige oversized leather recliners, and a glass bar stacked with juices, cakes, bagels, and donuts. There were two sixty-inch flat-screen TVs, a PlayStation, a Wii, at least a thousand games, and two DVD players with tons of movies. And the bathroom was bigger than the one we had at home. It even had a jacuzzi in it! A jacuzzi! On a plane! It was crazy.
“Dang!” Aniyah said in complete awe. “This cat must be pay’yaid!”
“Fa’sho,” Sydney said as she flopped back in the leather recliner and put her feet up. “You done good fa ya’self, Elite.” She animated her voice like an old country lady.
We all laughed and Haneef whispered, “Yeah Elite, you done real good.” He walked up behind me and kissed the back of my neck. Then he slid his left arm over my respective shoulder and slid his right hand in my side pocket, “You all wanna go and meet the pilot?” he asked my sisters and brother.
Their eyes popped open wide. “Yeah!”
“Ai’ight,” he said. “See that door?” he pointed. “His name is Pilot Mitchell and he’s a real cool dude. We have a few minutes before takeoff, so he’ll be happy to show you around.”
“Yay!” they cried as they skipped off. Once they were behind the pilot’s door, I felt more like a mother watching her children than an older sister, especially knowing that the trip was something none of us would ever forget.
Once they disappeared from sight, Haneef turned toward me and held me by my waist. I slid my arms around his neck.
“You know, Mica reminds me of myself when I was his age,” he said.
“What? You walk around with a sheet, too?” I laughed.
“A sheet? What sheet?”
“Nothing, forget it. Finish telling me what you were saying.”
He kissed me lightly on the lips. “He reminds me of when I was a little boy and my brothers used to look out for me.”
“Really?” I kissed him back.
“Yeah, I used to go everywhere with my brothers, even when I didn’t want to.” He kissed me again.
“Why?” I asked as our lip teasing turned into a passionate embrace.
“Ai’ight, ai’ight,” I said, breaking our lip lock and wiping my gloss from his mouth. “We need to stop.”
“Why?” he tried to kiss me again.
“Because we have kids behind that door.”
“So?”
“Haneef, I cannot have them see me kissing you.”
“You act too old for your age. You know that, right?”
“Whatever.” I sat down in one of the recliners and crossed my legs. “So tell me, why were you always with your brothers?”
“Because my mother was always working.” He sat down on my lap but I pushed him in his back. “Get your big butt off me!” I cracked up laughing and he began tickling me. “Oh, I can’t sit on you?” He tickled my stomach. “Oh, what—say it—”
I was laughing so hard, tears were pouring from my eyes. “Would you get up?”
“I’m buggin’, Li’l Ma,” he said, sitting in the recliner beside me, and pulling me onto his lap.
“Haneef.”
“Wassup?”
“How did you get your start in music?”
“Remember how I said my mother was always working?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s how I met P-Fifty and got into music. He and my oldest brother went to school together. We went to his house one day, and it was on from there.”
“Wow,” I smiled. “I betchu your mother doesn’t work that much now,” I laughed.
“Yeah, something like that. Now, tell me again what your mother does.”
“She’s…a waitress…I mean, a bus—nurse.”
“A who?”
“A nurse.”
Haneef shook his head and kissed me again. “Ai’ight.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“You know you can tell me anything,” he said.
“Okay.” I nodded my head.
“And you know,” he continued, “I’ve been thinking about how we’ve been chillin’.”
“Really?”
“Yeah and true story, everywhere I go, I’m always thinking about you.”
“You’re making me blush.” I laid my head against his chest.
“I’m dead serious.”
He stood up and pulled me closer on his lap.
“Do you think about me?” he asked.
“All the time,” I said without hesitation. “And when I’m not around you, I miss you like crazy.”
“Me, too, Li’l Ma. I wanna show you the world.”
“You wanna show me the world?” I lifted my head from his chest and looked into his face in disbelief.
“Man, Elite, nothing is too good for you.”
I swallowed and didn’t know why, but tears rushed to my eyes and I felt like I was gonna break down and cry. It was stupid, and I needed to be stronger than that. “Yeah?” I said so low I don’t know whether he heard me or not.
“I mean,” he went on, “you’re real special. And I was thinking that I needed to ask you to be my girl.”
Holding back the tears were a done deal; they were rolling freely down my cheeks. “What?” He wiped them away. “You don’t wanna be my girl?”
I shook my head up and down.
“Then tell me.” He cupped my chin.
“I just never had anyone…” I couldn’t even speak I was crying so hard. “I just…”
“Just what, Li’l Ma?”
“I don’t know…” I wiped my eyes. I felt so dumb.
“You don’t know if you wanna be with me?”
I looked at him as if he was crazy. “Of course I wanna be with you. Yes. Yes. I’ll be your girl. I am your girl. Yes.”
He smiled. “Good, and you know, it’s no secrets between us. I’ll never lie to you, and you don’t have to lie to me.”
I nodded my head, though I realized much of what he knew about me was a lie.
He took his platinum chain with the diamond microphone that hung around his neck and placed it on me. “This way, everybody’ll know that you’re my girl.”
Tears filled my eyes again, but this time they were tears of joy. I drew my face into his and we kissed like no tomorrow. It was official; it was the best day of my life.
“Ooooole…” Mica, Sydney, and Aniyah said as if they were a soprano chorus.
“I’m tellin’…” Aniyah sang. “Mediatakeout. com….”
The first face we saw when we arrived in Disney World was Mickey Mouse’s and of course the ghetto hoods, better known as Mica, Aniyah, and Sydney, bum-rushed him.
“Mickey,” Mica said, “how come I don’t see you around my way?”
“Cause he ain’t tryna get jacked,” Sydney snapped. “A name like Mickey Mouse, he’d be played out.”
“Fa’ real,” Aniyah nodded her head. “And with all that red and black he got on,” she said as she looked him up and down, “best believe whenever he step foot in Brick City, it’s gon’ be a situation.”
Oh…my…God…I was embarrassed. “Stop actin’ like y’all ain’t never been nowhere.”
“Block parties don’t count.” Sydney rolled her eyes at me as they proceeded toward a group of water rides.
“Hey y’all!” Haneef said. “Wanna race?!”
“Haneef—”
“Man, loosen up.” He smiled at me and then back at Mica. “You game?”
“Haneef, maybe some people think you can sing,” Mica said with confidence, “but I really don’t think you tryna get humiliated out here.”
We all fell out laughing. “Oh, so what you sayin’? You got some skills?”
“I’m not one to brag,” Mica said as he popped his collar, “but since you asked.”
“Ai’ight, so let go!”
“Haneef, you really don’t have to,” I said tight-lipped as I watched his security team shake their heads. “Look sweetie, Mica’s a sore loser, and I really do
n’t feel like hearing him cry.”
Haneef ignored me. “Come on, man.” He and Mica squatted in racing positions, “On your mark…get set…go…!” And Mica took off so fast, Haneef didn’t even see him leave the start line.
“How in the heck—?” Haneef half shielded his eyes.
“Tried to warn you. You cannot outrun a kid from the hood.”
He hooked me playfully around my neck. “Whatever!” and we laughed all the way through the series of water rides we took for the next hour. Afterwards, we played all sorts of games, won prizes, rode every roller-coaster you could image, and when it was all over and time to go, we were exhausted.
By the time we boarded the plane, we all fell asleep and didn’t wake up until we were back in New York, where we got in Haneef’s Hummer, and he brought us home.
“Thanks for everything,” I said to Haneef as we pulled up in front of Naja’s.
“Anytime. I had fun.” He kissed me.
“Me, too.” I kissed him back. “Well,” I said sadly, “I need to get in the house.”
“Alright, call me.” He hopped in his Hummer and as he turned the corner, we walked home, stepped over the crackheads, went in the apartment, where I cried myself to sleep.
SPIN IT…
Track 17
“So you and Jahaad not together no more?” Samantha caught me and Naja as we grabbed our food and headed toward the lunch table.
“Why?” We sat down and before long, Mecca was on our heels. Samantha passed us as we sat our food down, and she rolled her eyes so hard at me I thought she was going to trip over ’em. Whatever.
“Who she looking at crazy?” Naja snapped.
“I don’t know,” I retorted. “But as long as she keeps my name out of her mouth, then we straight. Otherwise—”
“It’s gon’ be a situation.”
“Exactly.” I turned back to Samantha. “Now, what you say?”
“She said,” Mecca butted in, “are you and Jahaad over with?”
“How y’all know?”
“The whole school knows, “Samantha replied.
“Ciera walking around here blasting it!” Mecca exclaimed. “She was all loud in homeroom, making a major announcement about it like somebody really cared.”
“What she say?” Naja asked.
I sucked my teeth. I couldn’t believe this.
“She said—” a smirk ran across Samantha’s face—“that they been bone’n and on the creep since sometime early last year.”
