Live and Learn (18 page)

“H
ow are you feeling today, Keesha?”

“I’m straight. You?”

“Fine thanks.” Dr. Copeland gave me that “let’s keep it cool and calm” smile like he was afraid I was gonna flip out and shit.

I wadn’t gone lie. I felt like climbin’ the fuckin’ walls in this m’fer. Rehab was a son of a bitch.

“What do you want to talk about today?” he asked.

“I hate it here, Doc.”

It was the truth, and they wanted nuth’n but the truth. So fuck it, there it was.

“Why?”

“I want to go home, Doc.”

“Do you feel you’re ready to go home, Keesha?”

I eyed him, feelin’ hostile as hell as my body craved a bag of dope like it was my savior. My body wanted to get high, but every fuckin’ day my brain was fightin’ it.

The battle was fuckin’ wit me big-time.

“Why do you always answer a question with a question?” I asked, stalling as I fought the urge to scratch.

“I don’t recall you asking a question, Keesha.”

Sitting forward on the edge of the chair, I made an ugly face and asked, “When can I go home?”

“You can leave anytime you wish, Keesha. This is a center for rehabilitation, not a prison.”

I hated this motherfucker’s calm, monotone voice. He always sounded like he was tryin’ to talk me the fuck down from a ledge.

It was like he could see all the emotions inside of me stirrin’ up and makin’ me feel like I didn’t know if my ass was comin’ or fuckin’ goin’. I ain’t know whether to laugh like I was insane or to cry like I did over Lex’s dead body or to scream like Freddy Krueger was standing over my ass.

I hated my life.

I hated myself.

“Why do you want to die, Keesha?”

I locked eyes with his and then dropped mine to avoid the truth. “I didn’t want to die. I wanted to forget.”

“Forget what?”

Forget that I’m jealous of Alizé’s light skin, her relationship with her father, and the support she gets from her mother.

Forget that I put a whack piece of dick before my friend.

Forget that I turned my back on my friends—my sistahs—when they were all the real family I got. The only ones to love me and accept me for me.

Forget that Lex—my love, my soldier, my street warrior—was dead.

Forget that my father chose drugs and the streets over me.

Forget that mother wasn’t no kind of mother.

Forget that I wasn’t no kind of mother.

Forget that I dreamed of havin’ lighter skin and even bleached my face in high school—somethin’ that led to even more teasin’. Tar baby. Crispy black. Blue-black. Urple. Black bitch. Dirty self. Ugly self. Jig-a-boo. Monkey. Inkspot.

A wave of sadness washed over me like rain.

“Do you feel you’re ready to go home?” he asked again.

I looked at him, and then I looked out the window. I thought about where I would be carrying my ass back to. If I went home, I’d sniff a bag of dope up in a New York minute.

I was a fuckin’ junkie.

E
very day of my life since I was fifteen I got up to go to my job. At some points in my life that had meant even Saturdays and Sundays. I did what I had to do to survive.

For the first time in my life, I did not have to rise at seven to shower and dress to be at work by eight. I could lounge around my apartment all day and shop when I pleased. It was the beginning of the life of luxury and leisure I always felt I deserved.

My relationship with Sahad had progressed quite rapidly. With his proposal came his request that I relinquish my position as the receptionist at the offices of Platinum Records. He did not feel it was appropriate for his future wife. He gave me a nice allowance that more than paid my bills and allowed me to shop like a true diva.

And so I was ninety percent of the way to my full dream. The last piece to the puzzle was my wedding, and my future security would be sealed.

And yet, I was anything but happy.

Somewhere along the line love and companionship began to mean something to me. With the “always on the go” lifestyle that my future husband led, I was nearly always alone, and how could I deeply love a man that I did not really know? And how could I know more about him when he was hardly ever in my presence?

Maybe my loneliness would not be so critical if I had my girls around me like we were in the past. In less than a year, our lives were all so different. Sometimes I felt like I didn’t know them. Dom on drugs? Mo lying about being raped?

And I was still struggling with what to do about
that
situation. My loyalty should lie with my friend, but wrong was wrong, and there was no way I could let Moët send an innocent man to jail out of revenge.

I had not spoken to her since that day at Alizé’s, and I had no plans to speak to her. The stunt Moët was trying to pull was just too scandalous, and quite honestly it showed a side of her that I did not want to even associate with.

So I was mad at Mo.

Alizé was just too through with Dom.

Ding-dong
.

I looked over at the front door from where I lounged on the couch, flipping through television shows I was not even watching. I glanced at my watch. It was just five o’clock. Setting the remote onto the coffee table, I rose to make my way over to open the door.

“Mohammed,” I said in surprise and pleasure as I looked up into his friendly face.

During the last couple of weeks, Mohammed had become my savior from loneliness and boredom. Our cat-and-mouse game had mellowed into a good friendship, and I looked forward to his platonic company as Sahad left me alone to my own devices.

Mohammed smiled broadly as he pulled a helmet from behind his back. He let it dangle from his finger. “Just bought a motorcycle. Wanna go for a ride?” he asked, smiling and showing off his dimples.

“Me? On a motorcycle?” I asked in doubt. “Please.”

“You got anything else going on today besides shopping?”

Mohammed reached out and lightly touched my hand. “Come on, the mall doesn’t close until nine-thirty.”

I shot him a murderous glare, even as I thought of the call I had gotten from Sahad canceling our dinner plans because he had an emergency meeting with his staff tonight. Why not?

“Just let me change,” I said reluctantly, stepping back to let him enter.

“I don’t guess your part-time man—”

“Fiancé,” I interjected over my shoulder as I headed for my bedroom.

“Excuse me,
fiancé
,” he said in a playful, sarcastic tone. “I don’t guess he’ll call and you’ll blow me off again.”

I stopped in my bedroom doorway and turned to look at him as he wandered about my living room. “I already apologized for what happened the night of my birthday, and you said we were still cool, right?”

He looked up from a picture of Sahad and me catching some rays on his yacht. When I saw the twinkle in his eyes, I knew he was joking.

I stuck my tongue out at him playfully before I walked into my bedroom and closed the door behind me. Just minutes later I emerged dressed in a pair of Sean Combs Superstar jeans and a white T-shirt with my weave hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.

Mohammed looked up at me, and his face was surprised.

I looked down at myself before looking up at him again. “What?” I asked.

“You look good, that’s all.”

I cocked a brow. “I
always
look good.”

Mohammed walked up to me, looking good and smelling great, his warm eyes locked with mine. “Yes, you do, but it’s good to see you in something except those slacks and dresses you wear all de time.”

We were a distance apart, but I felt like his fingers brought the bud between my legs to life and teased my nipples to aching hardness. His accent made my whole body tingle. His presence made me weak.

All things Sahad had not made me feel in a while.

Mohammed took one deliberate step toward me, and I took one small step back.

He took a larger step toward me.

I took a smaller step back.

Another large step from Mohammed.

I put my hand out against his chest. “Mohammed…”

He nodded with laughter in his eyes. “I want to kiss you. I want to taste you.”

My heart nearly leapt from my chest as he lowered his head to mine. His heat. His strength. His prowess. And that damn tantalizing scent of cocoa butter surrounded me until I was breathless and anxious for the feel of those luxurious lips just a few precious inches above my own.

I got lost in his eyes.

“Damn you fine, girl,” his words whispered against my lips.

Kiss me
, I thought.

His head lowered, and my eyes drifted closed as I waited for the first taste of him.

Moments later I felt a warm kiss pressed to my forehead.

“We better get going, Dani.”

What the…

I popped one eye open to see Mohammed stepping back from me. I swallowed my puzzling disappointment. “Let’s go,” I said, turning to open the door, step into the hall, and try to play like my feelings were not hurt that Mohammed passed on kissing me.

I
knew better, so I had to do better.

Cristal was mad at me, and I just knew I didn’t have long before she dropped a dime on me to Sahad and Bones. I hadn’t spoken to her in days.

As much as I defied my religious upbringing, I couldn’t deny knowing right from wrong. Lying and accusing an innocent man of rape was just straight crazy—no matter how much I hated him and wanted him to hurt. Plus, it was a crime to falsely accuse someone of rape.

I was scared.

What if they proved I was lying? My ass could go to jail.

What the hell was I going to do? How in the hell did I get myself into this shit?

How would I get myself out of it?

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I hated the person I had become. Lies and deception, hatred and pain, were my new best friends.

There was only one. Just one thing I could do to reclaim me. To be me. To be freed.

Every step down the stairs felt like rope was tied around my neck and waist and legs and some invisible person was pulling me back, stopping me from what I was about to do.

I pushed on.

I had no choice.

I didn’t even know I was crying until I stood in the doorway of the living room. My eyes took in the prim, proper, and almost bland décor. Gospel music played softly from the large wooden 1980s radio sitting next to the television. My mother sat in her rocking chair softly reading aloud from her well-worn Bible. My father sat with his fingers steepled as he listened to her. They were at peace surrounded by the symbols of the religion they loved so much. They were clueless to the pain I felt, the pain I inflicted with my lies, the pain I was about to reveal. My mother looked up at me.

“Latoya, why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

“I wasn’t raped,” I said in a whisper, the words almost running together and sounding like
I wasn’t raped
instead. My poor heart hammered in my chest, and my chest heaved with the tears and snot streaming down my face.

“What did you say, Latoya?” my father asked, his voice so cold.

“I wasn’t raped…I lied…forgive me, please, forgive me.”

Their silence was deafening, but the truth was the key to my freedom. At least I wanted it to be. I
needed
it to be.

My mother swooned back against the chair, and my father balled up the newspaper he was reading to fling it across the room. “Lies. A child out of wedlock. Premarital sex. Anything else you want us to be ashamed of?”

I dropped my head, tasting the salt of my tears as I wrapped my arms around my body and wept like a baby. “Daddy, don’t,” I begged, hating that I felt like a five-year-old being chastised.

He rose and stalked over to stand before me. “We didn’t raise you to be a—”

I jerked my head up. “A what, Daddy? What am I? A whore? A slut? A jezebel?”

All of the anger I felt at his neglect swelled inside of me and rushed out like a tidal wave. I saw that he was surprised by my reaction, and it spurred me on.

“Your reaction doesn’t surprise me at all.” My voice was bitter. “Love and understanding, forgiveness and support—those things from you would’ve blown me off my feet.”

“Honor thy mother and thy father.”

I felt so helpless, so overwhelmed with anger, and weak with regrets as my father refused to talk
to
me but quote Bible verses
at
me. “Talk to me, Daddy,” I begged.

“Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.”

I turned pained eyes to my mother and found her on her knees saying a silent prayer as she rocked.

“She shall be brought to the door of her father’s house, and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.”

“Are you people crazy?” I yelled at the top of my lungs as I backed away from them.

My mother rose. “Maybe we should call Reverend DeMark.”

“Call him.”

I laughed hysterically at my father’s barked command. “Call Reverend DeMark. Y’all don’t know nothing ’bout your god.”

“Go to your room, Latoya,” my father demanded.

“You know what? Call him. That’s perfect so that we can get to some more truths.”

I was bold and cocky now.

“Let’s see if he admits to fucking me when I was just seventeen and then talking me into getting an abortion.”

Life paused as soon as the words left my mouth. I was thinking them. I wanted to scream them, but I shocked my damn self when I actually
said
them.

The slap from my father surprised me and sent me down to the floor clutching my cheek. I looked up at him as my mother moved between us.

“Liar. How dare you disrespect my home. How dare you disrespect Reverend DeMark with your lies. I don’t even know you, Latoya.”

In those heated moments I felt hatred for my own father.

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” I gave them what they understood: Bible verses.

“Get out my eyesight, Latoya.”

I rose to my feet. “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”

“Get out with your lies!”

I gave my parents one last look and turned and fled out of the house.

“Latoya! Latoya! Come back.”

I heard my mother calling out for me, but I knew there was no turning back. The time for my freedom had come.

I had balls.

What choice did I have?

I didn’t use my key. I knocked and I waited. I needed to know it was okay for me to be there. I needed to know that we were all right again. I needed her help.

I was afraid.

The door opened, and Cristal’s face was filled with surprise and then compassion. That made my tears come back full force.

She didn’t say a word. She just opened the door wider and stepped back to let me in.

That’s what true friends were for.