Show and Tell Page 10

Cristal moved from her spot on the sofa to sit beside Moët on the ottoman in the center of the living room. “One for all and all for one, Mo. You know that.”

  Alizé rose up to sit on the other side of Moët on the ottoman. She eased the baby from her arms to snuggle against her neck. “Nobody’s breaking up the six of us.”

  “Nobody,” Dom stressed as she came over to stand beside the ottoman with them.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dom

  April 22

  When we was kids we thought growing up was the end all of all. Damn we was stupid as hell. Bein’ grown ain’t brought us shit but more drama than we coulda ever thought of in high school. I ain’t caught up with my babydaddy yet but I ain’t sleeping on this shit either. I get a chance to sneak a peek at Hiasha’s records and her father’s name is William or something like that. Even though I done got over Kimani and her friend Hiasha being sisters I am strugglin’ like a bitch to take care of my daughter alone and it’s been enough of that shit. Broke as I am, my ass is ready for some damn child support. Fuck that—

  “You hungry?”

  I look up from my newest journal with my favorite pen in my mouth as Corey walks into his bedroom with his big dick swingin’ between his thighs. “No, I’m ’bout to go,” I tell him. I ain’t even sure I made the right move to come to his apartment tonight. Thing is he called me. We talked. We laughed. I missed him. He offered for me to come to his place and for the first time I made that move. Two hours filled with watchin’ TV, fuckin’ like crazy, with a small nap right after and a bitch like me is ready to roll out. This shit feel too comfortable. Too right. Too much.

  “Why you leaving?” he asks, giving me that damn dimple smile of his as he drops down onto the queen-sized bed beside me. He reaches over to massage my nipple and my whole breast feels hot from his touch. I can’t explain the way this jokey motherfucker makes me feel.

  I don’t even answer his ass as I smile and shift my eyes back down to my journal.

  This little short motherfucker with a dick like a six-foot man is really getting to me. He really dropping that pressure for us to be a couple. I ain’t had a man to call my fuckin’ own since Lex. I never really thought I would find a motherfucker that could make me feel like him. Why the fuck is it so hard to separate the pussy from the heart?

  My pen drops to the bed as he leans over to stroke his tongue against my hard nipple just the way I like. By the time the pen falls from my hand and rolls off the bed to the floor I am laying flat on my back and spreadin’ my legs wide as them motherfuckers will go. I moan and arch my back but my eyes pop open as he shifts his sexy ass away from me. I turn my head on the pillow to look over at him with a little frown. “What’s wrong?” I ask as I grind my hips against the bed.

  “I got more going on for me than just my dick, Dom,” he tells me as he climbs off the bed and walks over to the chipped dresser in the corner.

  Oh shit. Here the fuck we go.

  “I know that, Corey.”

  His back is to me as he gets somethin’ from the top drawer. What, this fool ’bout to shoot me? Shit, where I come from that shit don’t sound all that crazy to me. “What you gettin’ a gun or some shit?”

  Corey looks over his shoulder at me and frowns. “What?” he asks as he turns. “You must mean a shotgun.”

  My eyes drop down to the blunt in his hands. I lick my lips a little as I watch him raise that fat motherfucker and put it between his lips to light. “You smoke weed?” I ask, surprised and a little mesmerized by the thick smoke rising from the lit tip.

  Corey strolls his ass back over to the bed. “I don’t smoke while I’m working. Weed ain’t that serious for me to be high around kids . . . but what I do between seven at night and seven in the morning is my time.”

  The scent—that one of a kind scent of weed—is callin’ my ass. When he drops down on the bed beside me and tilts his head back to blow a thick cloud of smoke I almost feel like a little fist of fuckin’ smoke is knockin’ me against the head sayin’: “Sniff me, bitch.”

  “Want a shotgun?” he asks as he holds the blunt between his teeth and shifts his body to kneel beside me on the bed.

  Sniff me, bitch.

  Me and my mama used to give each other shotguns. That shit pushed more of that good ass weed into your system.

  You know you want to sniff me, bitch.

  I used to love me some fuckin’ weed. I could smoke a half ounce by my goddamn self. That and a bottle of Henny and a bitch was straight.

  Just say yes.

  And after a while I smoked so much of that shit that weed didn’t do shit for me no more. I moved my ass right on to pedope. I almost overdosed off that shit.

  One tear races down my face as I twist my damn eyes away from that temptin’ ass blunt to look over at him. “I can’t,” I whisper as that struggle to stay fuckin’ sober grips my throat and my chest.

  Corey sits up. “What’s wrong, baby girl?” he asks with concern on his cute-ass face.

  My drug counselor told me moments like this would come in my life. That second where you have to decide to tell somebody in your life about your addiction. Trustin’ ’em not to hold it or use it against. Believin’ that they will still look at your junkie ass the same way. Wantin’ everythin’ to stay the same.

  Why I do this shit to myself? Why the fuck my life got to be all about using drugs and gettin’ the fuck up off them?

  “I used to . . . uhm . . . get fucked up off . . . I used to get high . . . off dope. I can’t be ’round you smokin’. See, bein’ with me ain’t as easy as you think.” I drop my eyes from his ’cause I don’t want to see all that shock, and disbelief, and only God knows what else.

  I can’t stop them damn tears if I want to. But this the shit. The realness. I hear the blunt hiss as he drops it in a glass of soda. That little nigga gathers me in his arms and pulls my head against his chest and holds me like he ain’t got shit to do in the world but try to make it better for me.

  And that makes me cry even harder.

  “I like you a lot, Dom,” he tells me as he rubs my back and presses his face down on top of my head. “Fuck that. I won’t smoke it around you. Shit, I’ll even stop smokin’ it if you want. Fuck that shit. Dom. Fuck it. I got you, a’ight? I promise I got you.”

  Right then in that moment his words and the feel of his arms is way better than the hardest of dicks.

  Chapter Twenty

  Moët

  Faith.

  I’ve been at this crossroad before. Believe or not believe? Do I take this into my own hands or do I let Him show me the way? Do I choose right or wrong to fight like hell to keep my child? Do I turn my back on the faith that I do have . . . again?

  I feel like I don’t have a choice.

  The lawyer from Cristal’s job was right. My whole gut clenches as I think of the papers in my tote bag advising me that Bones has filed for temporary legal and physical custody of our daughter while we await the custody trial. So I need a lawyer even sooner than ever.

  I make too much for legal aid and I’m not really trusting my case with a cheaper lawyer . . . yet. What can some joke of a lawyer with an office over a fried chicken shack do against the type of heavyweights Bones can afford?

  Bones changed his cell phone number and he moved out the building where he used to live. Even when I worked up the nerve to go to him and beg him to leave me and my baby be, I couldn’t find him. Besides, if I did get close to him I knew his bodyguards would do their job and keep me away.

  After taking two grand worth of cash advances off my credit cards, my little bit of savings, overdrafting my checking account for the allowed five hundred dollars, selling my designer items (courtesy of Bones and Reverend Sin) to a consignment shop, begging and borrowing the rest I’m still four thousand dollars short of the retainer.

  If I could borrow some from my parents I would. I still haven’t told them about the case because the fact that I lied about being raped is a subject none of us d
iscuss.

  Cristal and Dom told me to ask Taquan for the money but I would be dead wrong to do that when I’ve barely spoken to him since my failed attempt at popping his “cherry.” I like the deacon but I have other things on my mind than getting him or his dick.

  Like accepting this offer from yet another devil.

  I cut my eyes to the bundle of cash laying on the table and then up to the calculating eyes of Jean Pierre. He sees how desperate I am to snatch that five grand and run. He sees it and he is daring me with his eyes not to take it.

  It would be so easy to walk out of his house with that cash in my hand and leave his sons here with him—even though I clearly can tell that he is whipping they ass twelve ways to Sunday. And that’s all I have to do. Leave and not make a report. Leave his boys here with him and the five grand is mine. The Haitian lawyer with the beautiful house in South Orange is willing to do whatever to keep his sons with him.

  Just like I am willing to do whatever to keep my daughter with me.

  I don’t have a choice.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cristal

  “The most accomplished woman is known for what she does and not just whom she does.”

  I took a sip of my mojito as I look at Carolyn over the rim of the glass. It is time for some of her wisdom and she certainly looks the part of my mentor to high society. Her thin frame covered in an elegant red jersey dress by Christian Dior. Classy gold jewelry by David Yurman. Valentino shades ready to slide into place. Birkin bag on the empty chair at our table ready to be slid onto her arm. Her well pampered feet softly cushioned by Giuseppe Zanotti heels. Trendy blunt bob personally designed by Frederic Fekkai. And to top it all off a Fendi sable worth more than I made in a year was checked and ready to slide onto her back effortlessly.

  She had generously gone through her closet and given me outfits that I could only dream of affording. So today as I sat in the perfect size six Chado Ralph Rucci ivory dress, black lace Carolina Herrera trench and this bad pair of Christian Louboutin slingbacks, I look the role of the black socialite on the rise. By every outward appearance anyone who really did not know me (like just about everyone in this restaurant) would think I have every right to be here amongst them.

  The girls are waiting for me back at the apartment to go over Mo’s court hearing in a few days and Mohammed is home fixing me a special Caribbean dinner for later tonight, but at that moment nothing matters but the knowledge Carolyn is about to drop.

  “What is the legacy you will leave behind for your children?” she asks as she raises her bejeweled hand to wave away the waitress who just stepped up to our table.

  And with that simple motion the waitress is gone. As always I am truly impressed.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve done office work too but now you won’t catch me on anyone’s job.” She leans back in her chair and crosses her legs exposing her one-hundred-dollar silk stockings. “I grew up in Harlem with a drunk for a father and a junkie prostitute for a mother. Whenever the bitch did remember to send me to school I wore sneakers with holes in the bottom and jeans with my knees exposed. I was a hungry, napped-headed, ashy mess. And look at me now.”

  The look she gave me is pure cockiness. “I made sure that I aligned myself with only the best. I walked like them and talked like them and learned from them. When I married my beloved husband I was ready to become one of them.”

  I nod my head to let her know that I am listening and I am understanding.

  “Now since you’ve made it clear that your . . . handyman is your future—and he barely has a decent pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of—then you need to supply your own pot and window.”

  Carolyn’s words are the end all of all to me . . . except where it comes to Mohammed. True, my friendship with Carolyn had put the first dent in that armor surrounding our relationship but I love him with all that I have and ever hope to have. She has tried to hook me up with wealthy men—some handsome and some not, some young and some who were well into the sugar-daddy range. According to Carolyn these older fish were the best to catch because it put a woman closer to the time his will is read. It seems that being a wealthy widower is the real fun.

  “I love Mohammed, Carolyn,” I remind her as I lean forward to reach for my drink.

  She rolls her eyes. “Trust me, I know the pleasures of a young firm body to stroke my clit. I have plenty of young ass from here to Brazil . . . but I don’t let anything or anyone fuck with my money.” Carolyn sits forward on the edge of the leather club chair and reaches over to lightly rub and then pat my hand. “Remember that, Danielle.”

  Remember it? It’s been my motto, my mantra, my everything . . . until Mohammed. “I think you’re right about defining my own legacy . . .”

  My words trail off as a commotion breaks out near the front of the restaurant. I turn in my seat to take a look.

  A thirty-something woman is pushing past the maître d’ to storm over towards the rear of the restaurant. My eyes get wider and wider when it looks like she is headed straight to our table. I turn back to Carolyn. The cold and hateful look on her face shocks the hell out of me. If looks could kill that woman headed our way would be dead. I twist back around in my chair.

  “Why are you doing this to me, Carolyn?” she yells from halfway across the restaurant. “What? So you don’t know me now, you old bitch?”

  Two bus boys roughly shove her back towards the glass front doors.

  One last look at Carolyn and her façade is back in full effect. She is calmly sipping her glass of water as if there is not a woman screeching her name as she is hauled out of the five-star restaurant.

  My eyes must hold questions because Carolyn waves her hand dismissively as she says, “I hired that asshole, Kelle, as my personal assistant and I fired the bitch for stealing. The little slut even put her raw ass into my silk panties. Nasty bitch.”

  I cock a brow. “There is one thing I will never wear second-hand and that is someone’s worn underwear. No offense.”

  Carolyn laughs. “None taken.”

  “Too bad she couldn’t appreciate working for you,” I say, leaning back as the stoic waitress brought out our plates of sliced fresh fruit, croissants, and shrimp salad.

  Carolyn cut her eyes at me. “I thought about offering you the position when I first met you,” she admits before using her utensils to dice the jumbo-sized shrimp in the salad.

  I lock my eyes with hers. I am anxiously awaiting the rest.

  “But I have bigger things in mind for you than being anyone’s flunky . . . including mine.”

  She raises her crystal goblet to me and I gladly toast to a life of bigger and better things.

  “Well, look what the fuck the cat drug in.”

  I close the front door and give Dom’s sarcastic ass a mean eye roll. The ladies and the kids are all in the living room, obviously waiting on me. With work, living it up with Carolyn in NYC, and squeezing whatever time I have left for Mohammed, I have hardly seen my beautiful apartment . . . or my godchildren and friends. I did not have a clue what is going on with everyone outside of Mo’s custody battle.

  How are Dom and Alizé getting along?

  Is Dom willing to admit that she likes Corey for more than his jokes and his dick?

  Is Alizé still mad at her moms and sleeping on her father’s couch? Is she willing to go back to teaching dance classes yet? How is she dealing with Cameron’s marriage?

  Has Mo convinced Taquan to finally give up the dick?

  “Damn, Cristal, you looking like a Vogue fashion layout,” Alizé says as she sucks on a red BlowPop, in a mean jean jumpsuit and thigh-high leather boots.

  Moët’s eyes are sad as always as they take me in from head to toe. She says nothing. She just looks back down at Tiffany sleeping peacefully in her arms.

  Dom moves Kimani in between her legs to begin loosening her hair from her ponytail. Mother and daughter are both sporting velour sweatsuits. “Look like a bitch back on the grind
workin’ that addressbook.”

  I pause before I sit down next to Moët on the couch. “I am not cheating on Mohammed.”

  Dom sucks her teeth in obvious disbelief.

  “I thought this meeting was to talk about Mo . . . not me,” I stress as I lean back into the comfort of the chair and cross my legs.

  Alizé frowns as she gives me a hard look. “Damn, bitch, since when does hanging out with your friends become a meeting?” she snaps.

  “You all know what I mean,” I say, giving them that signature Carolyn Ingram dismissive wave.

  “No. What we know is what your sneaky wannabe bougie ass been up to.” Dom leans forward to pick up a newspaper from the floor to hand to me.

  The New York Post’s Page Six Section shows a picture of me standing next to Carolyn, Star Jones-Reynolds, and Holly Robinson-Peete at a charity event for autistic children. The caption reads: “Socialite extraordinaire Carolyn Ingram shows the star power she can pull to raise money for yet another of her worthy causes. Pictured left to right: Star Jones-Reynolds, Holly Robinson-Peete, and Danielle Johnson (ex-fiancée of Platinum Record’s owner Sahad Linx).

  I am looking so good in this cropped camel Bottega Veneta anaconda jacket with a matching tank and linen skirt. I fit right in with these stylish and wealthy Black women. I smile as I read the caption again. I do not mind at all being linked to Sahad.

  When I look up from the paper (which I plan to keep) there are three pairs of eyes on me.

  For the first time ever I feel like we are not as close as we all should be, or rather I am not as close to them as I should be. But they have to understand that a friend like Carolyn Ingram will get me to places their friendship cannot. If not for Carolyn giving me hand-me-downs that are still worth thousands of dollars used, I would not be able to sell things to loan Mo a thousand dollars towards her lawyer’s fees.

  We are all growing up. We are not the same four teenagers chilling in the caf at University High. I am a grown-ass woman who is learning to look (and plan) for my future.