120
Blood for Bread
A Novel
April Courtney
1
I despised fake broads.
Yet I had to be one for an hour or so, until my real friend showed up.
Everybody at the table was smiling and holding conversations about things they really didn't give a damn about. I walked up to Adrianne and touch her on the back.
In the most fake, high pitched voice I could conjure up from the back of my throat I said, "Hey girl."
She turned and almost hit me in the face with her fake ponytail. Almost everything about her was either fake or altered in some way. Weave, false lashes, contact lens, veneers, boob job, and nose job. I’d be surprised if God recognized her on Judgment day.
She said, "What's up Yves, I'm glad you made it."
"Girl, you know I wouldn’t miss your thirtieth birthday celebration."
She threw her arms around me and squeezed. I cringed and wiggled myself free. She stretched her neck to look around me, frowned and asked, “Where is Nora? I thought she was coming with you."
"She should be on her way. She had to drop the kids off at her Mama's. You know she is never on time for anything." I threw in a fake chuckle.
I knew Nora would to be late, intentionally. She couldn’t stand to be around Adrianne anymore than I could. They had been best friends in high school until Nora started dating Adrianne's younger half-brother, Justin, after graduation. When she got pregnant and he started acting stupid, claiming he wasn't her baby’s daddy, Adrianne sided with her brother, of course. She demanded a DNA test and accused Nora of sleeping around. Too bad the accusations weren't true, because a fifteen year friendship was destroyed in the process.
"Oh ok girl, well find you a seat ‘cause the waiter’s about to bring everybody a shot of Patron. Let’s get our drank on! I’m glad you came." She tossed her horse tail over her shoulder and headed toward a couple of girls in tight dresses who were walking through the door.
Drinking was the last thing I needed to do but maybe a shot or two would take the edge off. More than one, however, would put me over the edge and onto Adrianne’s ass if she didn't drop thirty two hundred dollars in my hand before the end of the night. That was the only reason I accepted her invitation. I couldn’t have given a rat’s ass about her birthday.
I found a seat near a girl with a small round face and pudgy nose. I laughed to myself at the thought of how much she reminded me of the dog from the Will Smith movie; the one starring Tommy Lee Jones.
I pulled out the chair and asked her, "Is anybody sitting here?"
"You are now." she replied.
I didn't know anyone at the table besides Adrianne. I had assumed most of the girls were her classmates from cosmetology school. There was more weave in the room than a beauty supply store; at least a dozen colors, textures and lengths. I touched my auburn dreadlocks and remembered what is was like to have chemical burns and split ends.
"Cute dress, is that Bebe?" The round face girl ginned at me and nodded her head. "I love me some Bebe, I know everything they carry in the stores. That's Bebe, huh?"
I forced a smile and said, "Thanks, yeah it's Bebe."
"That's a pretty color, too. What is that like some kinda pink?"
"Coral." I replied, wishing she would stop talking to me. I checked my cell phone for a missed call.
"You do hair, too?" She asked
"No."
"Oh, so how do you know Adrianne?"
"We went to high school together."
"Oh snap! Are you from 'Port City, too?'
I shook my head and said, "Bossier."
Port City was slang for Shreveport, the big sister city of Bossier.
"But I thought you said you went to high school with Adrianne? She went to Caddo Magnet in Shreveport."
"I did, but I lived in Bossier."
The round face girl made a face and said " ohhhh, 'scuse me. Your people got a little money, huh?"
I responded with half a smile, mainly because she was half right. My father was the top litigator at his firm until he was indicted on conspiracy charges. Apparently he paid more than four million dollars in kickbacks to clients who, in return, became plaintiffs in lawsuits against major corporations and concealed it from the courts. Eight months into his thirty-two month bid in federal prison, he agreed to testify against his former business partners in exchange for thirteen months shaved off is sentence. He was found dead three days after making the deal. Hung. Prison officials called it suicide. I called it a cover-up. My father was a black man; it would have taken more than a three year sentence for him to throw in the towel. Not only did we have to pay a half a million dollars in legal fees and fines, Daddy was ordered to forfeit over $3.1 million in profits. To make things worst, Uncle Sam got involved and took their 2.6 million before the money ran out. My mother and I struggled to live on what we had left. The well had run dry. Over the last three years, we managed to hold on to the little bit of luxury we could salvage. It had been hard to adjust, especially for my mama.
My cell phone vibrated. It was a text from Nora
Not coming. Gotta pick Kaleb up at 8.
I let out a heavy sigh and sucked my teeth; tried to think of an excuse to leave before the food came out.
"You're Patron ma'am." A voice from behind startled me.
I took the shot glass from the bald headed waiter and downed the alcohol.
The girl with the small face handed me the salt shaker and said, "Girl you was supposed to wait for everybody."
"Oh, I have to leave, gotta family emergency." I stood up and waved to get Adrianne's attention.
"What's up Yves?" She called from the head of the table.
I mouthed, "Gotta go," then held up my cell phone and mouthed, "Mama sick.”
That was all I could come up with. I motioned for her to meet me by the door ‘cause I wasn't leaving without my money.
"Is everything okay, Yves? Is your mama okay?"
"No, actually I have to go right now. She's not doing well. The doctor put her on Benzo’s last week and she's been experiencing horrible side effects."
I wasn't lying.
"I'm so sorry, girl. I hope things improve."
I touched her arm and asked, “Hey, you got that money for me?"
She seemed surprised that I asked.
"Yes, girl I got it but I didn’t get a chance to go to the bank today."
"Adrianne, you said you'd have it tonight. You were supposed to pay me back two months ago."
"I know and I'm sorry. I'll bring it to you tomorrow. I promise."
I locked my eyes with hers and tried to read her sincerity.
The bitch had lying eyes.
"Adrianne, I need my money by noon tomorrow. I'm going out of town," I lied.
"No doubt. I'll be at the bank as soon as they open."
"Which bank?"
"Chase."
"Which one?"
"The one on Frankford and the Toll way."
"I'll meet you there at 9 a.m."
A surprised look crawled back across her face.
"O-okay." She agreed.
"Don't do me, Adrianne."
She giggled nervously and said, "Girl, I'll see you in the morning."
I had a strong feeling she wasn't going to be at the bank the next morning. The feeling overwhelmed me and I couldn't shake it. My heart clawed at my chest as numbness took over my body. My bottom lip trembled when I clenched my hands and teeth. The loud crash of porcelain jarred me from my hypnosis. The bald headed waiter was down on both knees gathering dishes.
I decided to walk away.
She had fourteen hours.
2
Seven A.M.
Monday morning.
The time when the Dallas North Tollway came alive. I sat in the parking lot of Dick’s Sporting Goods. Too many thoughts vied for my attention. I tried Adrianne on her cell phone.
No answer.
She had managed to avoid me for an entire week. I guess she thought I’d see her, whenever. Today, I was ready to see her.
Nora found out, through her baby’s daddy, that Adrianne and her husband booked a trip to the Bahamas for the summer. It would be a cold day in hell before she flew off to the pink sands of Nassau with my money in her boot-legged Louis Vitton purse. When I heard the news, I was fit to be tied. Nothing but my money in my hand was going to keep me from issuing a good old-fashioned ass whooping on the corner of Haverwood and Dallas Parkway, especially after the mail I received yesterday.
Time Warner $146, Reliant $201, AT&T $268, Baylor Medical Center $562, Mercedes $808, and Country Home Loans wanted eleven hundred goddamn dollars!
No matter how I figured it, the sixteen hundred dollars chilling in my bank account was not going to get me through the month. I was there to collect what was owed to me, in an all black jogging suit, sneakers, no jewelry and my dreds pulled into a ponytail. I had my game face on.
A car whizzed by, honked, and maneuvered around a pedestrian yapping away on her cell phone as she took her time in the crosswalk. Parked car windows cried from the morning’s dew. My aviators blocked the suns rays that peaked around the pillowy clouds. I turned up the radio when I recognized the voice of Sister Bernice Jenkins doing the church announcements on 97.9. I chuckled and turned off the radio.
For the next few minutes, I sat in my car deciding how to approach the situation. My brain pleaded for me to go home, but my heart fought back. I started the car and headed into The Amali on the Parkway. A complex of grey and black brick luxury apartment homes stashed in a dead end, trapped inside a black wrought iron gate. I waited for an oncoming car and swooped in through the exit. Adrianne’s white Infiniti was parked next to a souped up black Chrysler 300 with the words, R.I.P Lil’ Lucky, stenciled across the rear window. I parked behind her and made my own space.
I tried her cell phone again.
Same result as before.
The salon where she worked wasn’t open on Mondays so I figured she’d be home. My phone buzzed. She had called back.
I answered, “Yeah”
“Hey girl, did you call me?”
I ignored the question and said, “I’m outside, I came to get my money.”
“You outside?”
“Adrianne, open the door and let me in, we need to talk.”
I walked around the sidewalk until I came to apartment 132. The door was cracked. The smell of bacon seduced my senses as soon as I entered. The patio door was open just enough to allow a cool breeze to sneak into her well lit apartment. Sunlight crashed against the naked white walls. Bookshelves and end tables crowded the small living room. Mismatched picture frames with photos of babies, toddlers and teenagers filled the shelves and table tops. Adrianne didn’t have children. She was the youngest of six. Four of them were incarcerated, but the pictures captured only happy moments and smiling faces.
Adrianne sat on a black leather sofa, one leg hidden under the other, inhaling the last inch of a cigarette that should have been ashed three puffs ago. The glass coffee table was covered by a Dr. Pepper can, a coffee mug and an iPhone on top of last month’s Essence magazine.
She pointed toward the kitchen and said, “There’s breakfast in the kitchen. Help yourself.”
I shook my head and listened for movement coming from the other rooms. I couldn’t read her. She acted like everything was cool. Like she thought I was there for a social visit. I asked, “Got my money, Adrianne?”
She inhaled, rubbed the back of her neck and said, “Not today.”
I sat down in the black leather chair across from her.
Eye to eye.
Allowed the silence between us to become hostile.
I clinched my jaw and interlaced my fingers. A lump in my throat grew as if I had forgotten how to swallow. Fear was all over me like the day the jury returned their verdict at Daddy’s trial. Each second crawled by at a snail’s pace. I was afraid to react and allow my emotions to take control. Afraid of what I was capable of doing.
“Just give me some more time. Two months and I’ll have thirty two hundred dollars for you. I just don’t have it right now.”
It was already three months past our agreement and she had stood me up at the bank two days ago. I shook my head in disbelief.
She had begged me to plan her wedding. I reluctantly agreed because I knew she wanted the type of wedding she saw on those reality shows; her beer money budget wasn’t going to cut it. I couldn’t attach my name to anything cheap, so I made her a deal. I’d pay for the reception and she’d pay me back when her husband got his income tax check. I believed her. I had no reason not too. I knew where she lived and I knew where she worked.
I’d loaned money to friends and associates before and never had a problem. Of course, that was when Daddy was around. He would throw big yacht parties and fund weekend getaways. Nobody wanted to be on his IOU list and miss out on all the perks of being on his good side. He was a generous man. Now that he’s gone, all of his debts turned to write-offs. No one collected on his behalf like Frank Lucas did for Bumpy.
I stood up and said, “I can’t give you any more time.”
She chuckled, “Well, you really don’t have a choice.”
I gritted my teeth and said, “You dirty bitch.”
My body jolted toward her. I had lost control. I straddled her on the sofa and introduced my right fist to her left jaw.
Her scream was soundless to my ears.
“Where’s my money?” I hit her with a hard left. “Don’t fuck with me.”
Before I could hit her again, she fastened her hands around my throat.
Her grip tightened. My ears popped.
A rush of blood flooded my brain as if I had been underwater for too long.
I grabbed her wrists and threw my body backward. We hit the floor. I had a few seconds to get to my feet. My breathing was labored. My eyes watered. Adrianne charged like a raging bull, her fist doubled.
She shouted, “Bitch, I’m gonna—“
My fingers clasped around her throat. Her eyes widened. I was taller and longer. I had the advantage. Our bodies played a competitive game of Twister.
I used all of my strength to sling her against the patio door. The thrust of her body slammed the door as she collapsed to the floor. Her body was limp, but she was breathing. I bent over to catch my breath with both hands on my knees. I felt faint. Jolts of pain rushed down my leg and across my back. My knuckles bled tears of victory.
I searched the apartment for items of value. Grabbed a red suitcase from the front closet and found the bedroom. I unplugged the surge protector from the wall and stuffed it into the suitcase along with two Mac Books and iPads. I went back into the living room and unplugged the PS3; placed it and the games sitting next to it on top of the Mac Book.
Adrianne was still out. Blood dribbled out of her nose. Her fake ponytail barely hung on to the ends of her hair. I snatched her iPhone from the coffee table and stuffed it in my pocket. I saw her leg move through my peripheral vision, so I buried my right foot into the center of her softness.
She held herself. Her body tensed.
Pain rolled off her tongue.
I zipped the suitcase.
Grabbed the bacon.
And rolled my goods out of the front door.
3
President George Bush Turnpike was congested.
There was a wreck. The Turnpike was rarely backed up thanks to the pay to ride feature; it was like a gated community for commuters. I always preferred hopping on and making a usual forty-five minute trip to suburban Fort Worth, a twelve minute dash. I35 was a deathtrap and US75 was a traffic nightmare. Then I remembered, I wasn’t in my car and I didn’t see a toll tag in the windshield of Nora’s ride. I flipped on the turn signal and merged lanes at the same time. The car in front of me used the same technique so I slammed on the breaks. The last time I ran the toll without paying, the fee jumped from a buck and some change to twenty five dollars. I grabbed a dollar bill from my purse and scrounged the seats for loose change. I wondered what genius made the toll fee $1.26 rather than $1.25. I handed the money to the attendant whose smile turned up the corners of his ill-trimmed mustached. I inched back into the line of bumper kissing cars. It was the great Chinese traffic jam.
I took exit TX 114 hwy in Southlake, a city that sits between Tarrant and Denton counties. It was a suburb of Fort Worth, an area where Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Bank of America and high end business occupied every corner. There was no bus line, Valero gas
station or check cashing businesses in sight. It was a mural that showcased opportunity, money and success where very few people looked like me.
I grabbed my cell phone to call home. “Hi Mama, you home?”
“I’m leaving the doctor’s office. How are you, baby?”
“I’m well. I’m in Southlake, headed to the house.”
Her voice was an octave higher when she said, “Good. I can’t wait to see you. I’m on my way home.”
“Don’t rush Mama; I’m spending the night.”
“I had some geraniums planted, tell me if you notice them when you drive up.”
“Alright. See you soon.”
It made me feel good to hear her in high spirits. Maybe the medication worked this time. I prayed it would.
I pulled into the 28,000 square ft. of property that I called home for the past nine years. At sixteen years old, I was living like the daughter of royalty in a 6 bedroom 8 bathroom mansion. My sweet sixteen birthday party made the Southlake Daily newspaper.
Concert in the basketball gym.
Boy against girls bowling.
Indoor and outdoor pool party.
Brand new 1994 Jaguar XJS.
Forty five envious teenagers vied for my attention and made me one of the most popular girls in school, definitely the most popular black girl in school. I enjoyed the
attention but never believed the hype. The white kids always seemed shocked that my family was wealthy and my parents were still married, as if Texas was incapable of producing intelligent, productive and functional black families. There weren’t very many
black kids at the new school. The few I talked to were too white washed for my taste. My true friends were back in Louisiana.
Leaving Nora and Tracy behind made me miserable. They were my best friends. As long as I kept my grades up and participated in an extra curricular school activity, Daddy sent a car to pick them up every other weekend and bring them to Southlake. For them it was like going to a luxury resort hotel. Breakfast in bed, movie theater, game room, swans and ducks in the ponds outside my bedroom. It was the perfect home. Then Tracy got pregnant the year after I moved, so her visits were every other month. Once she began to show, Mama stopped her visits completely. I cried for a week. But to Mama, image was everything and a pregnant teenager was not to be rewarded.
Mama was strict and Daddy was hardly ever home. He worked out of the Bossier City office during the week and came home on the weekends. Mama spent the week lunching and shopping with the other too tanned, too skinny, too drunk housewives in our sub-division; we were the Joneses. Whatever was new in electronics, fashion, beauty and cars, we were the first in the neighborhood to have it.
Mama’s last job was at the make up counter of Robinson-May six months before she met Daddy. At the time, Daddy was straight out of law school and the newest attorney with his firm. He helped lead a record breaking class action lawsuit against a giant health insurance company that earned him a half a million dollar payday. They
married six months later. Our family lived the lifestyle of the rich and famous for a while, and for a while I was happy to be Yves O’Neil.
The unforgiving pain in my face severed me from my past. I placed my hand over my mouth and entered the code to the gate. The property was landscaped to perfection. The last time I was home, at least sixteen men trekked across the property with wheel barrels and water hoses. It was like a scene from Roots, but the Kunta Kente’s had been replaced by Jose’s and Jesus’. I drove pass the lake, around the driveway and up to Mama’s Mediterranean style home and garden, nestled under mature oak trees. Her fairy tale world where she got to be Queen Elizabeth, I played Princess Tiana and Daddy…well, he started out as Mama’s Prince Charming and turned out to be the Prince of Thieves, so to speak.
#
After a game of Scrabble, Mama sat in her favorite red leather recliner; all one hundred and thirty pounds tucked under black cashmere throw. Years of nicotine, cocaine and alcohol abuse robbed her smooth chocolate skin, and left the diamond hard look of a Cobra. Her softness became as untreated leather. Miriam sat with her and poured hot tea
out of a cast iron pot. Mama quietly stared at the wood paneled walls and floor to ceiling book shelves behind her.
Miriam had been with the family since Louisiana. She was more than just a maid, more like a family’s favorite aunt; someone who could keep the best secrets and give advice on the most embarrassing topics.
She watched after Mama; made sure she ate well, slept well and took her medications properly. She didn’t always live on the property, but after Mama completed rehab twelve years ago, Miriam was asked to move in for a six figure salary.
Over the years, they had become best friends.
There as a rumor that Daddy and Miriam were lovers; that Mama moved Daddy’s mistress in with us. I never asked questions. Mama never acted as if she heard the rumors, but I know she did. When I was younger, I wondered how Mama could let people talk about our family like that and not address it. Yet the louder the rumors got, the more daddy showered her with expensive jewelry, expensive cars, and trips to England, Switzerland, Japan and France. I once called myself going with on a guy who I thought was cheating on me with his ex girlfriend. Mama told me to invite her over. Get to know her and become friends. So, I did.
That was in the eight grade.
That’s how I met Nora.
I walked over to Mama and kissed her damp forehead. Her breathing had become more labored within the last four hours.
Miriam touched my arm and said, “Your mama will be fine. God will take care of her.” She paused and waited for me to look into her tired eyes. “He will take care of you, too.”
For Mama, the day had turned into a two-faced lover; woke her up with optimism and joy then put her to bed with pain and misery. She struggled with so many illnesses; Crone’s disease, IBS and recurrent depressive disorder. Her depression scared me the most. Some episodes lasted a few hours, some a few days. The last major episode was seven months ago. It started on Daddy’s birthday and ended two weeks later in a hospital on suicide watch.
I placed my hand on top of Miriam’s wrinkled, manicured hand and said, “I know Miriam. Thank you for always staying by her side.” She was a registered nurse who received way more benefits being our family caretaker. Mama has been her only patient for the last eighteen years.
Her baggy eyes confessed to the sleepless nights she stayed up with Mama, and told me not to worry. She never left our family, even after her platinum salary was reduced to bronze. She loved Mama, and Mama loved her.
I left the library, seeing Mama that way had always been hard.
As the sun buried itself behind the clouds and the moon invaded its territory, I dipped into the indoor pool, surrounded by Italian hand painted tiles. The water knocked the chill off of my body. My muscles ached from the brawl earlier that day. I stretched and endured the pain. My hips wafted through the water. Lap after lap, I cleared my head.
Tucked the troubles of my world into a pocket of my mind where I could revisit each one on my own time. I journeyed back to the days when I lived for the 5a.m. practices, pasta parties and chlorine.
“Can I bring you something to eat?” Miriam stood in the doorway. She was a handsome woman who belied a voice that was anything but bold.
I stepped out of the pool and said, “No thank you. I’m not hungry.”
“What did you eat today, Yves?”
I wrapped a plush white towel around my waist and walked toward her.
“Miriam, I’m not a guest. If I get hungry, I’ll raid the fridge.”
She looked at me strangely, like she had something she wanted to say. Then she touched my cheek and said, “Is everything okay with you?”
I pulled away, tucked my fattened bottom lip behind my teeth and nodded. I wasn’t in the mood to discuss my problems. She wouldn’t have understood my actions. I wanted to get to my room, take off my wet bathing suit and have sweet dreams. I wanted to feel like I was sixteen again, back when I didn’t have a care more important than what I would fashion to school the next day. I wanted to pretend Daddy was in the garden room swirling his Hennessey Ellipse in a snifter, listening to Mama tickle the ivories on the Steinway from the great room. I wanted to be in my room, sitting in the middle of my canopy bed, reading Right On magazines and giggling at every thing my boyfriend said on the telephone.
I dropped my abashed eyes when I said, “I’m fine. I’m going to bed now.”
I stepped around her and waited for her to call my name.
I wanted her to call my name.
I needed her to call my name and comfort me.
#
At twenty six, I was a college graduate with a law degree from Baylor University, no kids, no diseases and no man. I attempted the nine to five for the first time around six years ago. The day I was pulled into the ‘principal’s office’ for taking an extra four minutes on my break, was my last day in corporate America. Since then, I’ve lived off investments and the monthly allowance I received from my parents. I justified my reasons for not working by volunteering as a swim coach at the Boys and Girls Club, feeding the homeless at The Stew Pot and entertaining the children of Daddy’s out of town clients when he wanted to sign major contracts. Now the only job I had was working the counter at Nora’s boutique on the days she worked her second job at the art gallery. The return on my investment in the boutique wasn’t enough to fill up my gas tank and my Trust Fund was depleted. But working was something that took getting used
to and I wasn’t at the point of making that adjustment. So, I chose to make a more solid investment into what is called dating.
Although many of the people I knew when my family’s money was flowing, are no longer around. The men who thought I was still wealthy threw freebies my way. Trips, jewelry, tickets to exclusive parties; the kind of things I could sell if I needed a little extra cash. The trick was to play hard to get and make them think they were going to eventually get a taste. Miriam taught me that during my senior year in high school.
I had assumed it worked on Daddy.
My body melted in between 660 thread count sheets. The multi-sized bed pillows took up most of the queen sized bed, but I didn’t want to toss them. I didn’t want to feel like I was in bed alone. I turned off the lamp and closed my eyes to complete silence and total darkness.
Bzzz…Bzzz…Bzzz
Damn. I thought.
I yanked myself up, planted my feet on the floor and searched the darkness for my cell phone. It was a text from Nora.
Call Me 911
I texted back.
Sleep. What’s up?
I waited a few minutes for technology to do its thing.
Bzzz..Bzzz.Bzzz
I checked the message.
Adrianne.
My heart knocked on my chest as I typed, dead?
About a minute later Nora responded.
What?
I scrolled to the setting on my cell phone and changed the ringer to silent.
If Adrianne was dead, Nora would have certainly known about it. Since she didn’t, that would have been the only reason I would have called her, whatever the emergency was would have to wait until morning.
I tossed the cell phone across the room onto the lavender chaise, fell onto bed, tossed to the side, and then turned on my stomach. Nora and that damn text message had unzipped the pocket where I stored my worries and they had spilled out into the darkness. I turned on the lamp and grabbed the remote from the nightstand. I knew of only one trick that would put me to sleep, besides good sex.
The History Channel.
4
My family could be a little ghetto behind the gates. On the outside everything was prim and proper but on the inside certain things screamed ghetto fabulous. Like the fact that the butler’s pantry held six jars of Red Rooster hot sauce, sixteen cans of Vienna sausages and four boxes of Sugar Smacks cereal; the Blu-Ray and DVD collection was a library of black only movie titles, except for The imitation of Life and the wizard of Oz. Daddy always supported black films, whether they were big hits or D list. He used to get them from the bootleg man at his favorite barbershop. Attorneys and police officers were the biggest law breakers.
“Mama, can I get you anything?” I stood in the opening of the French doors to the master bedroom suite. The blinds were closed and Mama was still in bed.
“It’s 2 o’clock, Mama. You wanna get pampered?”
No answer.
“Let me wash your hair and give you a pedicure.”
Same response.
The nightstand was cluttered with prescription bottles, water bottles, tissues, an ashtray and a tea cup. I walked over to the nightstand and picked up the overflowing
ashtray. A blue pill was covered in ashes. I sifted through the butts and rubbed the pill between my thumb and fore finger. The letter M and the number 15 were indented on
each side. I tried to keep up with her medications and I didn’t remember a blue pill. I looked around for the bottle but came up empty. I dropped the pill into my pocket and took the ashtray to the bathroom. I could hear noises in the hallway so I grabbed a towel and walked back into the bedroom.
“Mama’s not getting up anytime soon, I see.” Miriam came into the bedroom and stood over Mama.
“She’s out. I couldn’t even get her to get up to be pampered.”
“Oh honey, your mama has been pampered so much, I’m quite sure it no longer excites her.”
“But I was going to pamper her. That should’ve excited her.”
Miriam gathered the mess on the nightstand and said, “Do you remember the last time you painted my fingernails?”
I giggled when she brought up a fifteen year old memory. That night, Daddy entertained three congressmen and Miriam handed them scotch and whiskey with polka dot fingernails made with red nail polish, white out and blue permanent marker. It was a patriotic sight.
I remembered the pill in my back pocket and held it up.
“Miriam, what is this? I don’t see the bottle.”
She grabbed her reading glasses buried in the jet black curly hair on top of her head, placed them on her narrow nose and muttered, “Goddammit.”
I didn’t know what that meant. But I wanted to know what made the women I had known for eighteen years curse in front of me, for the first time.
#
An hour later I sat on the terrace and listened to nature orchestrate its symphony of melodies and countermelodies. Nora and Tracy sat on either side of me and listened too. We were always on call for one another just as we had promised in high school. It would always be that way and we’d never let anyone or anything infiltrate our friendship. We were a hell of a trio because we were strong individuals.
Nora squeezed my hand.
Tracy rubbed my arm.
I whispered, “Ovarian Cancer. How could she have not known she had ovarian cancer for so long?”
The life inside of me cried.
Nora squeezed my hand again.
Tears stained by tank top. Stained my soul. Life was being a cruel witch.
I told Tracy, “Thanks for coming out here. I know it was tough getting off work.”
“Fuck that job. You’re family.”
“But you were on a….what was it… final warning?”
“Don’t worry about that shit. There are plenty of other banks that can use a dedicated bitch like me. Hell, they just better be glad I’m not on some Set it Off type of shit.”
Nora leaned back and said, “You too scary to even think about robbing a bank.”
“I know, right. I can’t go to nobody’s jail. This pussy is too damn good to be passing it around to a bunch of bitches.”
We laughed.
I was glad to get my mind off of Mama’s new diagnosis.