The People vs Cashmere 2
Karen Williams
www.urbanbooks.net
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Copyright Page
Acknowledgments
Whew! Where do I begin? Let’s just say that I feel incredibly blessed to have come up with this concept that just managed to fall into my lap. The People vs. Cashmere has always been a novel dear to me. When we talk about these young girls who are out there selling their bodies against their will people fail to realize that these young girls are being sexually exploited right smack dab in our neighborhoods. Reality is that the average age of the girls out there is thirteen! And almost all of these young girls are being sexually exploited against their will by a pimp. I thank God legislation is being changed to tackle this issue. I also wanted to shout out people like Rachel Lloyd and Nola Brantley for really striving to make a difference, fighting for our young girls, and trying to eradicate commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking.
I always tend to shy away from doing a sequel unless there is a really good reason and the concept is a good one. But this concept was an amazing one that I loved. And it felt so good to revisit some old characters that, since I created them, just seemed to stick with me. What was just as exciting as revisiting old characters was creating new ones like Dominique and Meka. I don’t want to give it away before you read it but the lives they live now may be a bit surprising to you. We never really know what happens after a novel ends. We just tend to believe and sometimes hope that it is as happily ever after as the ending often is. But that is not always the case. Believe me when I say there are some twists and turns so you’re gonna need a seat belt for this one J. But again, I strive to bring the depth and intensity for you guys. So I hope you guys enjoy.
I want to thank my children, Adara and Bralynn. Love you two!
Thanks to my mother and my sister Crystal.
Hey to my nieces, Mikayla and Maydison; my nephews Omari, Jeff Jr.; my cousins Donnie, Devin, and Mu-Mu; and my goddaughter La’naya . Hey to Tammy, Shauntae, Ray, and Eric.
Thanks to my friend Lenzie, with your crazy self!
Hey to my best friend, Christina. Christina four words: “For The Weekend Baby!” Lol. Only she will get this inside joke.
Thanks to Sheryl, Gwen, Linda, Tracy, Christina, Talamontes, Pam, Carla, Sewiaa, Ronisha RIP, Shameka, Valerie Hoyt, Tara, Pearlean, my second mom! Dena, Angel Williams.Thanks to Lamartz Brown, Sandy, Johanna Jo Jo Collier, Sharlene Smith, Papaya Flagstaff, Shawnda Hamilton, Just Read Book Club, Fundamentals, African American Writers On The Move and SLYCE Book Club. I appreciate all the love and the support.
Smiles to Bernie, and Patrice for always uplifting me.
Thanks to my editor, Kevin Dwyer. He’s the best in the business.
And to my fans. (Clearing my throat Part 2) . . . The past year has been kinda tough. You guys always keep me on point and always inspire me to produce the best work I can. I know for a fact that if I didn’t have you guys cheering me on that I wouldn’t have completed this novel. So I thank you guys.
And finally, The People vs. Cashmere 2 would not be complete unless I continue to encourage those around me. To those that are going through it. Know that darkness is temporary and we are always guaranteed a new day. And while you’re waiting for that new day, you may find people around you that continue to keep you down or even rejoice at your suffering. They may be the one who caused your suffering. Keep pushing on and know that these individuals are merely using your temporary struggles to build themselves because they in all actuality have nothing else. They are nothing else. Continue to use all of what they throw at you for motivation and soar because I know you can. Trust me I am not exempt from experiencing this. As I said before, use the haters as fuel, keep going. And in the end, thank them like I’m doing here . . . (Clearing my throat part 2) . . . To those who tried to tear me down, your attempts just weren’t successful. Know that truth is always revealed. I’m not mad at you, I’m praying for you. You may want to keep in mind that I’ve got a ray of light around me and you aren’t dimming it.
Chapter 1
Cashmere
“Black Mitchell! Wake your motherfucking ass up!” My gun was aimed at his sleeping form.
As soon as I saw a speck of white in his eyes, as his lashes touched the bottom of his brows I wasted no time in pumping those bullets into that sorry motherfucker as his body jerked to and fro. In fact, I emptied the entire clip. I enjoyed seeing all the bullets pierce his flesh as smoke filled the air and blood started to seep from his body. But still, despite the fact that he was no longer breathing and his eyes were wide, I loaded another clip and emptied it as well, ignoring the terrified screams of Dominique. I smiled at his dead body for a moment then as my daughter continue screaming I looked over at her tear-soaked face.
I lowered the gun.
She stood to her feet.
“Dominique. No!”
Before I could grab her, she ran toward the bed and threw her body over Black’s. She started bawling.
I rushed over to her and grabbed one of her arms. “Get off of him, baby!” I started crying. What had he done to my child?
“How could you, Mom?”
“I had to, baby. I—”
“You killed my father!”
Chapter 2
Seven months before, New Years Eve Night, 2011
Cashmere
I covered my ears at the sound of our dresser mirror shattering from Demarco putting his fist through it. I wanted to go to him and help him as he looked down at his bleeding hand. But I knew he wouldn’t want me touching him. So I just sat on the bed and cried tears as he wrapped a towel around his hand and looked at me hatefully. Seemed like every day I was crying. No wonder I couldn’t get pregnant. I was always super stressed at all the arguing between Demarco and me. And I really didn’t know where we stood. But one thing I knew for sure and that was that he hated me. My baby hated me. And I loved him. I loved him like I did when I was eighteen. When I was going through all that mess with Black after I had gotten out of jail. Throughout it all he had been there for me loving me unconditionally. Even when he found out the truth about my past: that I had been a prostitute, addicted to drugs, who went to juvenile hall for murdering my sister at the age of thirteen. None of that mattered to him. He stayed by my side and never left it.
After the trial Black was locked away and no longer a threat. Demarco and I moved in together. We both bought a house in Inglewood, the city where he opened up another hair salon. I worked as a hair stylist there and cared for my man. Things were perfect. Demarco also opened a shop in Long Beach and one i
n Marino Valley. So he was always busy and business was thriving. I had a huge rock on my hands and bitches who worked at the salon were so, so jealous. At least twice a day I would hear, “What’s so special about her?” And I would chuckle. I had calmed down a lot and wasn’t the hothead I used to be who was always willing to fight at the drop of a hat. I thought it was Demarco I had to thank for that. He was always so calm, so happy and smiling. He was my peace. Then a few months into us living together, I found out I was pregnant. Now while I was far too young to have a baby, I was still excited. I gave birth to a little girl named Dominique. My mother and her commissioner retired from Lancaster Police Department and bought a house down here in Carson to be closer to me and her granddaughter. Now my baby, she was absolutely perfect. She had my coloring, my eyes. That was my partner in crime there. Seemed like after I laid eyes on her, everything in my world made sense. It just did. And I was the most doting, paranoid mother ever. Without a doubt, no one was going to be able to let any type of harm come my baby’s way. When I was twenty-four and Demarco was twenty-nine we got married in Vegas. Thing was part of me knew he had drifted apart from me. And part of me also questioned whether we should have gotten married. And when I asked him he told me, “It’s the right thing to do.” But it wasn’t. Life for us was not good. He drifted further and further away from me. Like he resented me. And what didn’t make the situation better was the fact that I couldn’t get pregnant again. And Demarco felt like I was doing this on purpose. That I deliberately didn’t want to give him a baby.
I thought about how loving he used to be toward me. A tear couldn’t drop without him wrapping his arm around me and kissing them away. Now he would see me sobbing and would say. “Good. I’m glad you’re hurting, bitch!”
Things between us had changed around the time Dominique turned five. He became more angry and hateful toward me and more distant. But I continued to play the role, pretending that my marriage was good and we were happy. The chicks at the shop thought I was so lucky to have such a fine and successful man in my life. But if they only knew. Despite how much I faked the funk, we were in a miserable marriage. Yet still, I loved Demarco and I was so desperate to save what we had. Because of the resentment he harbored I sometimes didn’t think it was possible.
His yelling snapped me out of my thoughts. “Get it right, Cashmere! You don’t run me. I go as I please. I have always been my own man until I let myself get pussy whipped by you. But those days are over. And truthfully I don’t want to be around you. I mean if you want to know the fucking truth, Cashmere! This shit is your fucking fault. Things between us will never be right. And you know why. If you had done one simple thing we wouldn’t be like this.”
“What was I supposed to do, Demarco?” I demanded.
“What did I ask you to do?” he raged.
When I didn’t respond he got all up in my face. I was so hurt at how he was coming at me.
“Answer the fucking question, Cashmere!” He now had his hands gripped around my shoulders and he was shaking me.
I started crying and said, “Get your hands off me, motherfucker!”
“Man, I should slap the fuck out of you.” He shoved me away. I lost my balance and fell on the floor. I just lay on the floor crying. It had no effect on him. It never did anymore. That made me hurt more.
Suddenly, his phone started ringing. He stepped over me and grabbed it off of the dresser top. “Hello?” He paused. “What’s up, Dame?” He looked over at me in disgust, shook his head, and said, “Man, yeah, I can get out. Because this shit right here is for the birds. I got no time for it at all anymore.” He paused. “All right, I’m heading out now. I’ll meet you up there.”
He grabbed his wallet and keys and shoved them along with his phone in his pants pocket.
“Where are you going?” I demanded. I got up from the floor.
“Bitch, your reign over me been gone a long time ago. Don’t ever ask me what the fuck I do!”
He stepped past me like I was trash on the floor or dirty laundry that he didn’t want his legs to touch.
Chapter 3
Dominique
Things between my parents were super weird. I tell you, I just didn’t get why my daddy hated my mommy so much. But more importantly, I didn’t get why he acted like he hated me. To tell the truth it seemed like it came from nowhere. When I brought it up to my mom she would tell me I was tripping. “Look at your baby pics and see the love in your father’s eyes!” She would always shove a photo album in front of me, with pics of me as a baby with him and her in them. I don’t know; that’s just one thing I never saw in his eyes: love. But love was something my mother gave me in abundance. I knew my mother deeply loved me. She told me every day that I meant the world to her. Although my dad didn’t pay me any mind; I might as well have been invisible. Even when I got good grades it meant nothing to him. I could also play the cello so good that my mom would come in my room, lie on my bed, and close her eyes and listen to me like she was at an actual concert. But my daddy never showed any interest. He wouldn’t come to my concerts at school (so I stopped playing), or to any of my open houses, teacher conferences, or when I graduated from elementary or junior high school. Funny thing was I was a real good student. My teachers always said I was a joy to have. I knew my mother felt the same. I just wished my dad did as well; nothing meant more to me than having my father’s love. I needed it. I would always remember my mother talking about how much her daddy loved her and how much he treated her like such a princess. I wished my daddy loved me like her daddy loved her. I would do all kinds of stuff to win him over. Like baking him cakes, to washing his car. When he would nap I would take off his shoes and socks and massage his feet. He would always wake up, look at me, jerk away, and snap, “Go play.” Then finally, I gave up.
Despite my relationship with my father, our life was pretty decent. We lived in Inglewood, CA, in a nice and organized five-bedroom two-story house. My mom did hair for a living and, boy, was she super good at it. I was amazed at all the hairstyles my mom could do. My hair, which was long like my mother’s, stayed nice. In fact, we looked a lot alike. I was dark like her with her set of gray eyes. Life was really simple. Our family was a triangle with me at the tip and and my mama and daddy at the base. I went to a private high school where I was pretty quiet. My mom said I was worse than a church mouse. I just wasn’t a very social person. Sometimes other girls at school would pick on me or make fun of how quiet I was. I hated it and it made me even more closed off to people. I thought back to the last time a senior girl had shoved me down some stairs. I came home crying. The other two times she had put her hands on me, one time pulling my hair and the other time she smacked me, I kept it from my mother. But this time I couldn’t. The fall had me limping. My mother, furious, called my grandmother and the next thing I knew we all drove in my mother’s Cadillac Escalade to the school. The whole way there my mother drove like a bat out of hell. On the way there my grandmother urged, “Now, Cashmere, we are going to go in there and be ladies. No yelling or cursing; we are going to conduct ourselves with class.”
Right.
When we got there, they cursed out the entire school office. “Why the fuck are you letting little bitches at this school bully my fucking grandchild?” my grandmother demanded. I wondered how her husband would feel about the way she was acting.
When the staff in the school office didn’t respond, my mother spied the principal’s office. “Come on.” She pulled me with her and with my grandmother in tow, we walked directly into the principal’s office. In a quick motion, my mother swiped all the items off his desk while my grandmother took a fighting stance waiting for the principal to react.
“Mrs. Pena.”
“Shut the fuck up! Let me tell you something. My daughter don’t bother anyone. So whoever the bitch is who put her hands on my daughter needs to get up in here now and there needs to be some type of corrective action. There are kids killing themselves because of bullies. So guess what
, Principal? If my daughter slits her wrists because she getting picked on I’m going to come in this bitch and slit yours!” she threatened.
His eyes bulged. “I have spoken to—”
“Naw fuck that. Let’s be clear, you pasty-face motherfucker. We’re not paying your punk ass seven hundred dollars a month in tuition for other girls to pick on my child. Come on, Dominique.”
Needless to say the girl ended up being suspended and she never bothered me again.
When I got out of my shell and would visit my friend Jada’s house, I saw how it was so different from my household. She actually had a close relationship with her dad that I wished to God I had with mine. In fact, I spent more time over there than I did at my own home. Jada had revealed to her father that my dad never really treated me with love. So I thought that was why he was so nice to me.
I stood on their doorstep and before I could knock Mrs. Douglas opened the door, prepared to step out but paused when she saw me.
“Hi, Mrs. Douglas.”
She gave me a warm smile. Mrs. Douglas was the color of butterscotch. She was a very pretty woman in her forties with a petite frame and a bob that framed her face. My bestie, Jada, had the same haircut. But Jada looked more like her father.
“Hi, sweetness!” she said.
I stepped back and lowered my balled left fist that was about to knock on the door, to let her pass. Before she did she planted a kiss on one of my cheeks. Whenever I met adults, teachers, family members, and parents of my friends, they always tended to call me this. My mom as well always told me I was the sweetest kid in the world. I wondered if my daddy felt the same way. Probably not. It was crazy because I loved my mom 100 percent, my mommy seemed to love me 100 percent, and it seemed my daddy loved me 0 percent and hated me 100 percent.
“Jada’s inside. You going to have to wake her behind up because I’m sure she fell right back to sleep.” She walked past me down the steps. As she walked toward her Benz she turned back to me and said, “My hubby gave me some shopping money. I was surprised. That’s a nice little treat this Saturday.” She ended her sentence with a giggle and unlocked and opened her car door.
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