Single black female, p.2
Single Black Female, page 2
She looked at him again wearily. “When you and Rashid first got locked up, I thought Deja was wrong for abandoning him like that. She never looked back; got married and moved on with her life. I thought it was foul. But she’s my friend, so I didn’t make a big deal about it.
“In the back of my mind, though, I thought I was better than her. Or at least that our relationship was stronger than theirs—because I stayed, and she ran. And here you are comparing me to her.”
“You’re doing the same thing she did. It just took you longer to walk away. That’s the only difference.”
“Nah,” Ivy said, all of her sympathy for Michael finally drained. “There’s another difference. Rashid wasn’t guilty.”
Michael was so furious that the vein in his neck visibly throbbed.
“He just rode it out for you,” Ivy continued. “Wouldn’t turn on you. He got sent away with you. All of us have been locked up with you, Mikey. Some of us physically, some of us mentally. And all you care about is whether or not these crackers call your name for a visit every two weeks.”
“Fuck you, Ivy!”
She jerked as the harshness of his words and tone hit her in the face like a fist. As rough and ruthless as he was in the streets, Michael had never spoken to her this way.
Ivy opened her mouth to respond but no words came out. Michael wasn’t done yet anyway.
“You must have forgot who the fuck you’re talking to!”
“SETTLE DOWN!” a guard shouted in their direction.
Michael’s chest heaved as he glared at Ivy. “I know you think I don’t have any more power now that I’m in here. That’s why you’re trying to walk away from me now. But I’ll show you. Ain’t nothing changed.”
Ivy felt a shiver go down her spine as she stared into his eyes. Michael looked like a man with his back against the wall.
She leaned forward in her seat, desperate. “Mikey, I need you to let me go. Please.”
He watched tears fill Ivy’s eyes.
“Please,” she repeated. “I looked around one day and noticed that all of my friends are people I met through you. All of my family is your family. I don’t have a life that doesn’t include you and I know it sounds selfish. Maybe it is. But I want to see what it feels like to have a life that’s my own. Just for a little while.”
His hands fisted involuntarily. There it was. He had sensed it for a while now. Ivy was leaving him slowly but surely. It enraged him.
“You remember what you said to me the day I got sentenced?”
His words hung there for several moments before they hit their mark. Ivy’s heart sank.
Her mouth went dry and she stared at him blankly.
From the expression on her face, Michael knew the blow had landed. He smirked.
“You said that they had just sentenced you to life, too. That you would do every day of this bid with me and you would never walk away. No matter what.”
He started counting with his fingers.
“No matter how tired you might get. No matter how busy or lonely or whatever. No matter how old the kids get or how much shit you gotta do. That’s what I thought you meant, but now I see it for what it is.”
He stood and motioned until he got the attention of the guards.
Ivy’s pulse raced. She looked at him anxiously. “What are you doing?” He looked at her like she was a stranger. Like she hadn’t been by his side from the start.
“Take your tired ass home and get some rest.”
Ivy watched, stunned, as Michael announced to the officer he was ending the visit.
“Michael, seriously?”
He looked down at her. “Be back here next week and make sure you bring my sons with you.”
He didn’t bother to look back as the guard led him away.
Ivy sat there fighting back tears, shocked and embarrassed. She took the ring off her finger, struggling a bit to get it off with all the weight she had gained. When the guard motioned for her, she stood and followed him as he led her out. She was hurt beyond her ability to express it. But as she retrieved her belongings from the locker, she knew she would never allow Michael to make her feel this small again. This was the final straw.
She tossed the ring in the trash can near the locker and stepped out into the sunshine. As tears streamed down her face, she decided that she was walking out of that prison for the last time.
Quiet Storm
Coco tossed the phone down angrily. Her brother had called her right after terminating his visit with Ivy. Normally, she tried her best to sympathize with Mikey. Tried to understand he was dealing with more than any of them could possibly imagine while he served his sentence up north. But Coco had watched her sister-in-law work hard over the years to keep things afloat in Michael’s absence. She had done a tremendous job of it, as far as Coco was concerned.
Coco—whose real name was Cara—had been given the nickname as a kid. Like her siblings, she had beautiful deep brown skin. Along with her impossibly long legs, toned body, and infectious smile, she had a charming personality that magnetized everyone around her. She stretched those long legs out in front of her now as she sat on her sofa thinking about her brother and the heated conversation she had just had with him.
Mikey had been indignant.
“She came all the way up here just to tell me she’s not coming back again anytime soon. What type of shit is that?”
“You sound crazy,” Coco said. “Ivy’s out here busting her ass to keep Noah and King on track. She’s running her business, making sure you have what you need. She’s human. She’s allowed to get tired and need—”
“Fuck that!” Michael said. “I’m the muthafucka who’s tired!”
Coco sucked her teeth. “You’re my brother. I love you. I tell you that all the time and it’s not just because you spoiled me. You know I always loved you and appreciated how you looked out for me. For all of us. But you’re wrong here, Mikey. Ivy’s not the bad guy for feeling how she feels. She’s human. She’s probably lonely.”
“I don’t care,” he admitted. “Let her figure it out. But if she’s not back up here next week with my kids, it’s gonna be a problem, Coco. Make sure she knows that.”
Coco sighed. She hated when her brother flexed his figurative muscles. It often had disastrous consequences.
“Ivy loves you. This ain’t about her abandoning you. Ivy and the boys are settling into their new place. Noah just took a semester off from college and he’s trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. Ivy’s doing everything she can to help him pick a career path. Not just a job, but a career he’ll love and enjoy.”
“Noah is like me. He just wants to get money.”
Coco agreed. “And Ivy’s worried that can lead him in the wrong direction if he’s not careful.”
“Noah’s smarter than I was,” Michael said. “Ivy worries too much about him.”
Coco disagreed. “Maybe she’s worrying for no reason. Maybe not, but she’s his mother and she loves him. So, regardless, she’s doing the right thing. With you being away, the responsibility of keeping him on track falls on her. And not just Noah. King, too.”
“King needs to man up,” Michael insisted.
“He’s only sixteen,” Coco said. “Just because he’s taller than all of us doesn’t mean he’s grown. King is a kid in a man’s body. Ivy knows what she’s doing, brother. Those boys are on the right track. Both of them.”
Michael didn’t respond right away, thinking about everything his little sister was saying.
“I don’t understand why she moved out to Staten Island,” he said at last. “In Brooklyn, at least, she had Patsy around the corner. Now they’re out there in Staten Island by themselves. That’s what I’m not understanding. It don’t make sense. Must be some other nigga she’s fucking with out there.”
For a moment, Coco thought she heard him wrong, but then her brother doubled down.
“That’s the only way I could see her disrupting everything. And I would respect her a lot more if she just told me that.”
“Mikey, you can’t be serious right now.”
“So, all of a sudden she’s too busy to come and see me? The boys are too busy?”
“Nigga, yes!”
Coco rarely resorted to using the N-word. She preferred to get her point across without it, but this time, there was no suitable substitute for what she needed to say to her brother.
“You act like it’s strange that a person would need a time-out from running up north every month, dragging packages up there, going through searches, putting her kids through that shit! That’s not unusual, Mikey. I bet you the other inmates in there know what it’s like to go without a visit every twenty to thirty days. Instead of appreciating what Ivy’s doing, you have the nerve to accuse her of cheating on you? After all these years?”
Coco couldn’t recall a time when she had been more tempted to hang up on her brother.
Hearing Coco’s reaction, Michael felt like a fool. He knew being locked up for so long had made him paranoid, anticipating the abandonment he believed was inevitable.
“Would you tell me if it was true?” he asked.
He hated the doubt he felt, wished he didn’t struggle to believe people meant what they said to him. But the truth was he doubted everything lately.
“I wouldn’t have to,” Coco replied. “Ivy would tell you herself. She’s a real one, and I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”
Michael felt a pang of guilt. “I been in here sixteen years, Coco. Everything I thought I knew I don’t know anymore.”
She felt sorry for him. Michael had been locked up for half her life. She hated that fact, but it didn’t change reality.
“Well, know this. You got people out here who love you. People who think about you every day. We would never abandon you. None of us. Especially not Ivy and the boys. And definitely not me and Patsy. You’re not by yourself. But you’re acting real silly right now.”
“Silly?” Michael had been going along with what she was saying until he heard that word. “I’m acting silly, Coco? For wanting my wife to stick to her word and stand by my side? For wanting to see my kids, and wondering what the fuck is going on while I’m not around? You the one that sounds fuckin’ silly!”
The recording came on, notifying them that their call was coming to an end. Coco was grateful for it. If they had gone on much longer, she knew she would have let him have it.
“Mikey, you’re upset, so, I’m gonna give you some time to calm down. Then, I’m coming to see you face-to-face.”
He sighed. “Ivy and the boys are coming next week. So, you can come with them.”
Coco shook her head. “I can’t come next week, Mikey. I have—”
“See? That’s the bullshit I’m talking about.”
Coco sat up, gripping the phone, prepared to light into him, but the call dropped. She threw the phone on the coffee table angrily and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and told herself to relax.
Of course, she sympathized with her big brother. Michael had always been protective of her, and he was telling the truth when he bragged about spoiling her. Since she could remember, he had always taken care of her. That was just how he was. “Mikey,” as his family and friends called him, took care of everyone he loved. When he started getting money, he assumed responsibility for all the major expenses in the family. Just like their father had before him. They came from a family of hustlers. Michael was no different. He’d taken care of her tuition. Coco had been afforded the best education, traveled, and enjoyed the best wardrobe and cars a girl could ask for.
However, she often reminded herself that she had personally done the hard work it took to earn her MBA. She knew she and her family owed Mikey their loyalty and their time, but she agreed with Ivy that he was asking for too much. He wanted everyone to drop everything and atone for the decisions he alone had made. And, in Coco’s eyes, that wasn’t fair.
She put on a fake smile as her nephews Noah and Kingston finally emerged from the video game marathon they had been having in her spare bedroom. Noah came and sat in the recliner across from Coco, and Kingston headed straight for the kitchen.
“I’m telling you,” Noah said. “I didn’t realize your place is this nice. We need to come over here more often.”
“Word,” Kingston agreed from the kitchen. “We always spend the night over Aunt Patsy’s house because our cousins are there, and we hang out and all that. But you got it made over here. PlayStation, sound system, big-screen TV. Why you still single, Aunt Coco?”
Coco laughed louder than she meant to.
“You know what, King? That’s a good question.”
She thought about Derek and the roller-coaster relationship they were riding. There was a lot of activity between them sexually. But there was no doubt. He was definitely not her man. The PlayStation was his, a toy he’d installed in her apartment for the time he spent there. Lately, though, she hardly saw him.
“She’s single because she ain’t settling for no suckas. That’s why.”
Noah winked at his aunt when he said it.
“Aunt Coco got high standards. She ain’t like them hos on Instagram.”
Coco felt flattered and offended at the same time. “Don’t call them hos.”
Noah frowned. “Why not?”
“Because it’s degrading.”
“He’s right, though,” Kingston said. He walked into the living room, chewing on a granola bar. He sat on the sofa. “They dress like it and act like it. So, if the shoe fits…”
Coco shook her head. “So, you think Nikki Diamond is a ho?”
Both boys reacted loudly.
“Naaah. Not Nikki.”
“Nikki’s different.”
“How?” Coco challenged them.
Kingston sat back, chewing as he spoke. “We know her.”
Coco nodded. “And you know that she’s just playing a part so that she can make money. So are a lot of those other girls. Don’t believe everything you see. Just because you don’t know them like you know Nikki doesn’t mean they’re all the same.”
Noah shrugged. “You might be right.”
Coco sat cross-legged in her seat. She decided to switch topics. “How do you guys like Staten Island so far?”
Kingston seemed to consider it before answering. “I like it.”
Noah shrugged again. “It’s different.”
Coco waited for them to elaborate, but neither of them did. She pressed further. “What about your mom? You think she likes it?”
Kingston smiled. “She seems happy so far. She gives me more freedom now that we’re out there. I like that.”
Coco’s eyes narrowed. “Freedom to do what?”
Kingston played innocent. “Just normal teenage stuff.”
“She wasn’t letting you have as much freedom when you were in Brooklyn?”
Noah chuckled. “She kept us busy all the time, so we don’t end up like Dad.”
Kingston agreed. “Aunt Patsy … she lets us hang out for real over there. Mom don’t like that.”
Coco knew exactly what her nephews were alluding to. Her sister Patsy—older than Michael by two years—always took pride in the family business. She loved the street life and all that it entailed. It was a world Patsy understood completely and could navigate easily. She saw Ivy and Coco as bourgeois benefactors of the grimy work Michael had done to keep the family afloat. Patsy’s own sons were deep in the drug game, and she was aware of it. In some ways, she even encouraged it. Coco wasn’t surprised that Patsy would allow her nephews unlimited freedom in her home. Patsy had never really grown up. She had aged, but not matured. Patsy partied, drank, and smoked weed with her kids. And when Noah and Kingston came over, she urged them to join in the fun. Patsy didn’t think of herself as a bad influence. She thought she was playing the role of the cool aunt. She wanted Noah and Kingston to become miniature versions of their father, while Ivy was doing her best to prevent that at all costs.
“You remember the big fight Mom had with Aunt Patsy that time?”
Coco groaned and nodded.
“How could I forget?”
Months ago, Ivy had gone out of town to work on a movie set in her role as a hairstylist. It was a great opportunity in LA that would give her more exposure and help expand her brand. She was still living in Brooklyn at the time, around the corner from Patsy and her kids. Ivy left Noah and Kingston in Patsy’s care while she flew out of town for the three-day shoot. Patsy had assured Ivy that everything would be fine. Instead, all hell had broken loose.
Patsy’s oldest son, Dashawn, had gotten into some street beef over money. Unbeknownst to Ivy, in the days leading up to her trip, that beef had reached a fever pitch. Returning home one night while Ivy was away, Dashawn had been involved in a shoot-out right outside Patsy’s brownstone. Noah and Kingston were inside and had witnessed it all, including the moment Dashawn rushed in with a smoking gun still clutched tightly in his hand. Patsy had helped her son stash the weapon and pack a bag. She had made several frantic phone calls and gotten Dashawn out of town before the police arrived to ask questions.
The moment Ivy heard about it, she had dropped everything and rushed home. She arrived at Patsy’s house the morning after the shoot-out, saw the tree outside still adorned with crime scene tape, and hurried inside. She found her sons sitting with Patsy as she schooled them on the rules of survival in their world. How the next step for Dashawn was to lay low until the time came for him to retaliate against the man who shot at him.
Ivy had been outraged.
“You can’t be fuckin’ serious right now! That’s the shit that got Mikey locked up! Don’t sit here and talk to my sons about killing somebody like that shit is an everyday part of life. THIS is not normal. Living like this. Knowing that your kids are in that life, risking everything for a dollar. Dashawn getting shot at in front of your house … the fuckin’ crime tape is still outside. And you’re in here talking about retaliating? Talk that shit to your kids if you want, Patsy. Walk them right into the jail cell or the morgue if you want. But keep that shit away from my sons!”
