by K'wan
“Something sure smells good,” Pearl announced her presence.
“Hey, girls.” Sandra wiped her hands on her apron. “I didn’t realize you were back already.” She kissed Pearl on the cheek, then Marissa. “How was shopping?”
Marissa chuckled. “Tedious, to say the least. Trying to keep up with Pearl in a store is like running a marathon.”
“She learned from the best.” Sandra smiled proudly. “I’ll bet after all that shopping you girls are hungry, huh? I ain’t whipping up nothing but a little stewed chicken and some rice, but you are more than welcome.”
“You must be crazy if you think I’m going to eat this close to showtime and risk being bloated in my dress,” Pearl protested.
“Speak for yourself. I’m starving.” Marissa slid onto one of the stools at the breakfast counter.
“So, are you excited about your big night?” Sandra asked over her shoulder, scooping chicken into a bowl.
“Yup, just as ready to celebrate my birthday as I was last week when the party was actually supposed to take place,” Pearl said sarcastically.
“You need to try at least pretending to be grateful, Pearl.” Sandra sat a bowl down in front of Marissa. “Instead of having it late, you could’ve not had a party at all.”
“I don’t mean it like that, Sandra.”
“Sure sounded like you did. Your father has got a lot on his plate these days and it’d be nice if you kids didn’t add to it with those privileged attitudes you’ve been carrying around lately,” Sandra said sternly. “You kids have no idea what your daddy is dealing with. There are forces at work beyond any of our control.”
Sandra was obviously troubled about something, and Pearl responded, “What’s with all the tension in this house lately? Is there something going on that I should know about?”
“Nothing for you to fret over, child,” Sandra told her.
“Well, the streets have been talking lately and…” Pearl’s words trailed off when Sandra shot her a look. Sandra had a strict rule about talking family business in front of outsiders. Pearl and Marissa had been friends for years, but Marissa wasn’t a part of that side of their lives.
“You just do as your daddy says, when he says, and you’ll be fine.”
Big Stone appeared in the kitchen as if he could sense they were talking about him. “I thought I heard little birds chirping in here,” he joked. “How’s my baby girl?” He kissed Pearl on the forehead.
“I’m fine, Daddy. How was your day?” Pearl asked.
Big Stone shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’ve had better and I’ve had worse. How’s it going, Marissa?” He turned his attention to Pearl’s friend.
“I’m fine, Mr. Stone. Excited about tonight,” Marissa told him.
“As you should be. This is going to be quite an event. I got people from all over popping through,” Big Stone told them.
“Daddy, I hope you didn’t invite a bunch of your old-school-ass friends. You know them dirty old men give me the creeps,” Pearl joked.
“Only some of the most important men in the city. We’re celebrating my baby girl seeing another year, so it’s only right that they come to pay homage.”
“That means it’s gonna be some ballers in the house! Heeeyyyy!” Marissa did a little dance in her seat, which got her a whack from Sandra’s dishcloth.
“You know we don’t play that fast business in this house. You might not be one of mine, but I’ll kick your tail like you was,” Sandra scolded.
“Ouch, I was just playing.” Marissa rubbed the spot on her thigh where the wet cloth had struck.
“Better not let Tito hear you playing like that,” Big Stone warned. Marissa’s father was one of his closest friends and a business associate.
“Mr. Stone, my dad is too caught up with board meetings to worry about what I’m doing,” Marissa said. Unlike Pearl’s father, who was heavily involved in her life, Marissa’s parents were too caught up with work to spend any real time with her.
“Well, I’m concerned. When you’re in my presence you get the same treatment as my kids, same as when Pearl is over at your place. Do you understand, young lady?”
“Yes, Mr. Stone,” Marissa replied.
“Good, now you girls go on upstairs. I need to talk to Sandra,” Big Stone told them.
“But she’s eating, and you know how you feel about us eating in our bedrooms,” Pearl pointed out. She just wanted to be nosy and try and catch a hint of what the adults were going to talk about.
“Well, since I’m the one that makes the rules, I can break them when I see fit. Now get, before I change my mind about this party. And don’t let me catch you listening at the door either,” Big Stone said. He knew Pearl’s game.
“Okay.” Pearl sighed. “C’mon, Marissa. Let’s go try on our dresses.”
“I swear, that girl is always trying to get over on somebody,” Big Stone said once the girls had left the kitchen.
“I wonder where she gets it from?” Sandra gave him a knowing look.
“Shit, she don’t get it from me. My cards are always on the table,” Big Stone said.
“If that’s the case, when do you plan on telling me what’s been eating at you lately?”
“Girl, what you talking about? Everything is fine with me.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it, Lenox.” Sandra called him by his government name. “You can bullshit them kids, but you can’t bullshit me.”
“It’s nothing, just some street shit,” Big Stone said as if it were no big deal.
“And that’s the first thing that falls out of your and that fool Knowledge’s mouth when you’re trying to hide something. Come on with the real, or do I have to cut it out of you?” She grabbed a kitchen knife from the cutting board.
“Okay, just watch it with that damn poker!” Big Stone took a cautionary step back. He doubted she would really cut him, but with Sandra it was best not to take unnecessary chances.
“Okay, now spill it,” she demanded.
“Things are getting a little tense on the streets.”
“When are they not? I keep telling you that this is a young man’s game, yet your old ass refuses to get up from the table. What is it now, some young upstart trying to buck for his piece of the pie?” she asked.
“More like a swarm of locusts trying to eat the whole pie. There have been a lot of bodies getting dropped on the streets over the last couple of weeks, and I ain’t talking about no random soldiers getting clipped in the line of duty, I mean as in whole crews getting wiped entirely off the map. You remember what happened to Pops’s spot, right?” Pops had barely made it out of his bar before the flames consumed it.
“Yeah, some type of electrical fire or something.” She recalled what she’d been told about how the bar got burned down.
“Wasn’t no electrical fire. Somebody torched the place,” Big Stone revealed. “It took some prodding, but Pops finally told us what really happened. Somebody was trying to muscle him out of his bar, and when he wouldn’t budge they burned him out.”
“Oh my God,” Sandra covered his mouth. “Did he have any idea who it was?”
“When me and Knowledge was visiting with him, he was about to give us a name before he mysteriously choked on his tongue. A day after that they found his son’s body, or at least what was left of it. Police been searching for an entire week and still haven’t found his head.”
“Jesus.” Sandra crossed herself. “Sounds like some dark shit at work.”
“I think the people who burned Pops’s bar were the same ones who took Pana out. Rolled right into the heart of his territory and cut his heart out of his chest in front of at least a dozen witnesses.” Big Stone thought back on the horrible way Pana had been taken out. “Somebody is making their rounds and taking out some of the most respected men in the city.”
Sandra picked up on his line of thinking. “And you think they may be coming for you next?”
“I wasn’t sure at first, until Know
ledge brought me word that Oscar and Pat bought the farm today too. Poor Pat, they killed him right in front of his baby girl.”
“Oh my God,” Sandra clasped her hand over her mouth, “that poor little Rose.” She thought of the little girl Pat was helping to raise. “Stone, if this don’t convince you to get out, nothing will.”
“If I step away now, it’ll look like I’m scared and every vulture in the city will be trying to get their taste of what I built.”
“So, you’re gonna let what people think of you put you in harm’s way?”
“This is street business, you wouldn’t understand.”
“The hell I wouldn’t.” Sandra scoffed. “How many years was I out there putting in work before I came to work for you at the house? I been in the streets long enough to be able to retire from them because I got a nose for disaster and a knack for getting the hell out of its way. From what you’ve told me so far two things are very clear about these new players: Knowing how heavy Pana rolls yet they were still able to get to him means they are highly skilled. And the fact that they killed Pat in front of his little girl means that they have no moral code. God forbid if these men were to ever find their way to our doorstep, there would be no reasoning with them.”
“Well, it ain’t gonna get that far,” Big Stone assured her. “I’ve got Knowledge and the rest of the boys out there turning over every rock and looking down every hole. We won’t rest until we find these muthafuckas. In the meantime, I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything, baby. You know all you’ve got to do is name it.”
“In the event that anything should happen to me, I need you to look out for my kids,” Big Stone said seriously.
“Quit with that kinda talk. Ain’t nothing going to happen to you, and God forbid that it did, you know I’m gonna look after these children. Ain’t I been doing it religiously for almost two decades?”
“For sure. I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been for you stepping up. You been my backbone, and I know you always will be, but that wouldn’t stand up in a court of law. Nah, we need to do this the right way.”
“I know you ain’t thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Sandra asked hopefully. She had been sharing Big Stone’s bed for roughly twenty years, even through up-and-down relationships. She wasn’t happy with being a fifty-year-old side chick, but she had accepted the position with the hopes that he would one day come around, realize her worth, and make an honest woman of her.
“Hell nah,” Big Stone said, realizing what she was hinting at. “Sandra, you know I love you, but I ain’t trying to fix something that ain’t broken. What I meant was making you the legal guardian of Pearl and Stoney on paper.”
“Lenox—” she began.
“Just hear me out,” Big Stone cut her off. “Outside of my daddy, I ain’t got no family that I care too much about. You done already been in their lives almost as long as they been alive, and done a hell of a better job than they real mamas could’ve in making sure they turned out good kids. Who better to guide them into adulthood? You already on my life insurance, so why not on this?”
“Your life insurance?” This came as a shock to Sandra.
“Why do you seem so surprised?” he asked.
“I don’t know, I just thought Pearl and Stoney would’ve been the logical choices.”
“You know my kids being straight were my first priority; they got them trusts that I set up. The only one in this house who isn’t financially protected is you, which is why I made you the sole beneficiary of my policy,” Big Stone explained. “The policy ain’t but for one-point-five, but that should be enough to keep your head over water while you sort everything out.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Sandra was still in shock.
“Don’t say anything. Just have your ass up Monday so you can go with me to the lawyer’s office to make everything official.”
“Thank you, Lenox,” Sandra said, trying to keep her emotions in check. She had been taking care of people all her life and this was the first time anyone, including her ex-husband and her kids, had ever bothered to make sure she was taken care of.
“You know, me throwing around all this goodwill has worked up an appetite,” Big Stone said.
“I just made some stewed chicken. You want me to fix you a plate?” Sandra picked up the ladle from the counter.
Big Stone pressed himself against her and plucked the ladle from her hand. “What I’m looking to eat ain’t gonna fit on no plate.” He planted soft kisses on her throat.
“You so nasty, cut it out.” Sandra giggled as he undid her pants. “Them kids could come in here and catch us.”
“Stoney is focused on that video game and Pearl is upstairs trying on clothes. We got at least a half hour before either of them comes this way. Now hush that mouth of yours and let me work mine.” He pushed her pants down around her hips and got on his knees.
CHAPTER TEN
Pearl stood in the full-length mirror on the wall of her bedroom turning her body this way and that, trying to see if she liked the dress she was trying on. It was a fitted green number that would show off her shapely hips and runner’s thighs.
“Now that’s the one, ma. You’ll crush the whole building if you rock that one,” Marissa said. She was lying across a bed, surfing the internet on Pearl’s laptop while Pearl tried on clothes.
Pearl gave the dress one last critical look then frowned. “Nah, I don’t think it shows off enough boob.” She cupped her breasts in her hands.
“Jesus, that’s the third dress you’ve tried on since we been up here,” Marissa said.
“That’s why I bought five, to make sure I get it right,” Pearl told her, unzipping the dress and wiggling out of it. She was a curvaceous girl, who had just over a handful of breasts, and shapely legs from years of running track in school.
“Girl, I would kill for that body. You can eat what you want and not gain a pound, but I gotta sweat for three days out of the week in the gym so I don’t grow up to be my abuelita,” Marissa joked.
“Good genes, baby.” Pearl ran her hand over her flat stomach. “I wouldn’t be too worried if I were you. I’ve seen Evelyn in a bathing suit and your mom has got a banging body!”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with genes. That’s all courtesy of Dr. Schwartz.”
“Your mom had surgery? You lying!” Pearl couldn’t believe it.
“Tits, tummy, and nose,” Marissa rattled off.
“Wow, I’d have never known. Everything looks so natural.”
“I should hope so. For what my mom has paid in plastic surgeries, I could’ve done two years in college.”
“Well, it isn’t like your dad doesn’t have it to blow on her. As much money as he’s made with my dad over the years, plus his regular job, I know y’all ain’t hurting.”
“No, we ain’t hurting, but we ain’t doing it like y’all … not at five percent,” Marissa told her.
“Girl, what you talking about? I know Tito ain’t in the life, but I know for a fact that him and my dad do a lot of legitimate business together. They’re partners, right?”
At first Marissa thought she was joking, but the confused expression on Pearl’s face said that she wasn’t. “Mami, you can’t possibly be that naive.” She closed the laptop and sat up. “Pearl, have you never asked yourself how a man with dirty money can spend it in a legitimate establishment? It has to be cleaned first,” she answered her own question.
“So you telling me Tito launders money for my dad?”
“Hell no! My dad ain’t trying to fuck up an eight-figure annual salary and stock options over no bullshit. He’s the go-between; the guy who puts people like your father into a room with other people who know what to do with that kind of money.”
“Wow, I’d have never thought Tito had that in him,” Pearl said, trying to picture the man who had taken them camping in the summers moving in a room full of gangsters. It didn’t fit.
&
nbsp; “Exactly, and that’s what makes him the perfect buffer. You mean to tell me you’ve been living in this house for eighteen years and you still don’t know how shit works?” Marissa was curious.
“You know my dad keeps me out of his business.”
“So does mine, but I’m too nosy not to know what’s going on under my own roof,” Marissa said.
Marissa had given Pearl some food for thought. She had known since she was a kid that her father didn’t have a traditional job, and some of their gains were ill-gotten, but she had never cared to know anything beyond that. Pearl had always been raised to not ask questions, and until now it had been okay with her so long as she was provided for, but in light of the mounting tensions and whispers around her house lately, she began to wonder if maybe she should start paying more attention.
“So, any word from Ruby about tonight?” Marissa changed the subject, seeing that she had created an awkward moment with her revelation. “I spoke to her yesterday after school and she said she’ll be here, but nothing after that. If you ask me I don’t think she’s going to make it. Her parents already had her on lockdown, and I hear that after they caught wind of what happened with me and Sheila they probably added extra security.”
“Knowing them I wouldn’t doubt it but don’t be so quick to count Ruby out. My girl can get very resourceful when she needs to. We’ll play it by ear.”
“Well, whether she comes or not, it ain’t gonna stop my fun. I plan on getting my swerve on!” Marissa declared.
“When do you not?” Pearl teased her. “I’m trying to do my thing too, but it’s probably gonna be damn near impossible with my daddy and his friends there. I’ll probably end up stuck with Knowledge or Power hovering over my shoulder all night.”
“Speaking of Knowledge, what do you know about this chick he’s supposed to be bringing tonight? From the way he moves in the streets, I always thought he was single.”
“Me too. This is the first time I ever heard talk of him having a chick. I hope it ain’t one of them hood-rat bitches from the neighborhood. You know I ain’t trying to have no bum-ass bitches up in my shit,” Pearl said.
