Live and Learn (22 page)

Fate was a no-good bitch.

Five months later

I
got something in the mail from Cameron. I felt excitement and curiosity. I studied it, turning it this way and that. I sniffed for a hint of his cologne. There was none.

I hadn’t seen him since that last time in my bedroom. Funny, but I thought he would call or come see me, but he didn’t.

I started to call him so many times.

When I got the cast off my leg.

When I finished physical therapy.

When one of my graduate classes started kicking my ass.

When Dana offered to let me teach dance class to little girls who were six to eight years old.

When I missed him so much I could cry.

But I didn’t.

I was chilling out for the first time in my life, enjoying me, myself, and I. No Lionel with the tantalizingly terrific dick. No more thugs catching my eye and sending a shiver of pure excitement through my body.

See, a motherfucker like Rah—them thugs that come and go—would never have me sitting around with my head up my ass waiting on them to love me or come back to me. It was men like Cameron and my father—reliable, loving, trustworthy and lasting—that broke a woman’s heart, like my mother’s, every damn time.

Dangerous, thuggish men made it so easy to keep my distance when it came to my heart. They were everything my father wasn’t, and so my heart was safe. Being with them I made sure—without even knowing it—that I would never become my mother. I was so busy protecting my heart that I lost sight of possibly being physically hurt by one of those dangerous men—bad boys—that my ass loved so much.

I loved my parents, but their shit—or me trying not to repeat it—had me good and fucked up. I was afraid of a normal, healthy adult relationship. I avoided them like the plague because I was afraid of being hurt. I sought only relationships where I maintained control of my heart.

To discover and dig into the realness behind my “thug love” was hard to swallow at first. My shit went deeper than loving a hard brotha in a wifebeater and a pair of Timbs. Deeper than loving the street cred. Deeper than fast money. Designer clothes. Bling.

So I took my ass to a therapist, although most Black folks like to lay their problems at the altar. Some sistahs took it to their friends, but this was bigger than the advice of the sistah-girl circle. I needed a professional. Period. Sometimes God blesses you with resolution right here on earth.

Yes, that’s right, laying up on someone’s couch twice a week and giving them hundreds per hour to get my mind right. I’m working through my issues. I’m working on closure about my parents’ divorce. I’m getting out my anger at Dom. I’m focusing on why I drew men like Rah to me like flies to shit. I’m coping with my loss of dancing and admitting to my love for Cameron.

Once I admitted to my feelings, I wanted call him or go and tell him, but I paused because I had to get myself together before I could welcome a man into my life. And my life now was all about school. Teaching dance classes and hanging out with my girls without Dom. Okay. Therapy was good, but it wasn’t
that
good. Yet.

I opened the flap and pulled out the card to read it.

As my eyes took in each word that felt like a blow to my body, tears filled my eyes, blurring the words. Thank God, because I couldn’t stand to read them again.

Glenda and Frank Lemons
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Serena Evonne Lemons
to
Cameron Lance Steele
on Saturday,
the Sixteenth of December,
at three o’clock

Damn. Damn. Damn. Diggity damn damn!

W
as I crazy?

I
had
to be.

I parked my car on the corner of Springfield Avenue and Seventeenth Street just like he told me. I glanced at my watch: 12:00
P.M
. I looked up and down the street through my rearview mirror.

I was so nervous. I felt like I had to shit, and my stomach was bubblin’ like crazy. My heart pounded in my chest, and my hands were shakin’ like an m’fer.

I wished he would hurry the fuck up ’cause I had to get back to work.

I looked down at the colorful smock I wore over my T-shirt and jeans. I couldn’t do shit but shake my head. Me workin’ at my daughter’s day care center as an aide. Hollerin’ kids. Snacks. Nap time. ABCs and fuckin’ 123s.

It was a long way from workin’ the pole.

And the $8.50 an hour was a long way from the loot I used to make. It took me two weeks to make the same money I used to make in a night. On the real? Sometimes I missed the motherfuckin’ stage and the money, especially having to pay my share of the rent on the apartment and tryin’ to hold on to my Lexus.

My life was so different, and I was proud of my damn self. Five months clean. No booze. No weed. No dope. Nothin’. It wasn’t easy. Every day was a struggle, and my journals was filled with my fight to stay clean.

I was even thinkin’ ’bout writin’ a book. Me? Shit, I remember when I used to frown up when somebody mentioned readin’ some shit besides a magazine. Now I read to Kimani every night.

My eyes shifted to the wallet-sized photo of her I kept on my dashboard.

I wasn’t a perfect mama or nothin’, but I was tryin’, and she loved me. She
loved
me.

All the love I was looking for up on that stage butt naked with a smile or in a bag a dope or weed, I had in her eyes the whole fuckin’ time.

I loved the hell out of her little ass, too.

My cell phone vibrated, and I picked it up from the seat. My mother’s number showed up. I dropped it back on the seat.

I had nothin’ but distance for Di—
my mother
right now.

For one she didn’t want me and Kimani to move out, and she threatened to use DYFS to take my daughter from me. I called the bitch’s bluff, and we moved right out. On top of that she kept callin’ me beggin’ my ass to bring Kimani for a visit. Now peep
this
shit.

How ’bout Diane smoked weed in front of me and then offered me a hit.

What the fuck?

It hurt me more than anything, so I grabbed Kimani and bounced. I ain’t spoke to her since.

A knock on my passenger side window shook me. I turned to look through the window into Rah’s face. My heart hit my chest so hard I thought I was ’bout to have a f’ing heart attack.

Am I crazy?

He’d called my cell phone out of the blue and begged me to help him. He said the police raided a house where he staying with friends and he needed somewhere to run to. Somewhere to hide.

“Open the door, Dom.”

Our eyes locked, and I made myself not look away.

A second later the shrill cry of sirens and the rough cries of police officers surrounded my car and Rah with their guns drawn.

“Put your hands up!”

“Don’t move!”

“Move away from the car!”

My car door was snatched open, and I felt myself being pulled out. I looked over my shoulder as Rah tried to make a run for it and was wrestled to the ground just a few feet away from my car.

It felt like everything was moving in slow motion.

Everything but my fuckin’ pulse.

“Are you okay, Miss Lands?”

I looked up at the male officer still holding my arm. “Yes. Thank you. I’m fine.”

“No, thank you. Your tip helped us catch him.”

I nodded and wrapped my arms around my chest, turning to watch as the police roughly pushed Rah into the back of one of the police cars.

I
was
so
ready to have this baby.

I wanted to hold him—yes, it’s a boy—and play with him and nuzzle my face in his neck, but mostly I wanted my body back. I felt like a water balloon about to pop. I could hardly see the television if I lay flat on my back, and I had to pee all the time.

I had just gotten off from my job as a caseworker for DYFS and was lying across my bed flipping through television stations when I caught a flash of Bones’s face on the screen.

My heart felt like it flew up to my throat as I watched him surrounded by a group of ass-jiggling video vixens.

I shook my head. “There’s your daddy.”

Bones stood in the center of the club as a stripper-like woman danced around him like he was the pole, and I frowned, then winced, and finally gasped in shock.

I quickly turned the channel.

I wouldn’t say I loved Bones anymore—if I ever really did—but I knew that video made me hot and not in the sexy way.

God, if I could turn back time, I would do so many things different. So many, many things.

Thank the heavens I didn’t wind up in jail for my lies.

Finally, I made peace with God and myself. Maybe one day I would make peace with Bones. Ask him to forgive me for lying. Encourage him to be a part of this child’s life and not just for money.

That was hard to do when he was still denying paternity.

His attorneys contacted me requesting a paternity test, but since I was too far along for those that could be given prenatally—which were unsafe for the baby—the tests would be done as soon as he was born.

That was fine with me. I was one hundred percent sure Bones was the father. Trust me this was not going to be one of those “Oh, no she didn’t, I know she shame” Maury moments.

Other than Bones my life was good. Thank God. Yes, I thank
Him
.

I’m still living at Cristal’s and have been with DYFS for the last three months. I was determined to do my job right. There would be no children left in abusive situations on my watch. Not just because I was a good person and all that, but because it was my job. Period.

The Lord and I were back on good terms. I wasn’t saved and half out my mind with Bible verses, but I went to church every Sunday and even helped Olana out with Sunday school. I didn’t know if my parents would be proud of my version of faith, but I was proud of myself, and that was important to me.

My parents.

I closed my eyes at the familiar dart of pain at our estrangement. I missed them. I even missed my father because some of him was better than none of him. I missed my sisters—although we spoke on the phone as often as we could and whenever my parents weren’t around. I wasn’t proud of the example I set for them, and although they, too, complained about our parents, I encouraged them to continue respecting and honoring our parents. I didn’t want them to do some of the crazy things I did, so I told them the truth, hoping they learned from my lessons.

Bzzzzzzzzzzz
.

I reached for my vibrating cell phone sitting on the coffee table. The caller ID said Cris.

“Hey, you.”

“How are you, Mommy?” she asked.

“Ready to push.” I used the remote to put the TV on mute.

“Well, I am at the store. Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“An IV drip to induce labor would be sweet,” I joked.

Cristal laughed. “How about a gallon of double mocha walnut ice cream.”

“That, too.”

“Dom and Kimani home yet?”

“No, not yet, but something’s up with Dom. She was acting real distracted this morning.”

“You would have shit on your mind, too, if you helped the cops catch a fugitive today.”

I sat up straight. “What!”

“Rah’s cornball behind called her for help, and Dom called the police.”

I held my hand to my belly. “And she didn’t tell me?”

“Hell, I just found out this afternoon when I called her after lunch.”

“Wow. Then good. I’m glad he’s in jail where he belongs.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

We both fell silent, and the question hung between us, so I gave voice to it. “Does Alizé know?”

“I did not tell her. I am so tired of trying to get Alizé and Dom back cool again.”

Yes, Cristal had tried everything including begging, and Alizé wouldn’t budge. I could see why she would give up, but I wasn’t ready to lose our foursome forever.

“I’ll call her.” I winced as a pain radiated across my back.

“Call me back and tell me what she said.”

I ended the call and quickly dialed Alizé’s cell phone number. I wished Ze would just beat Dom’s butt—or at least try—and get it out of her system.

As the phone rang, I glanced back at the sight of a burning building on the television.

“Hey, Al—”

“I’m glad you called, Mo. Guess who’s getting married? Just guess. You won’t believe it.”

“Your mother.”

Ze sucked her teeth. “Yeah,
o-kay.”

“Your father?”

“No.”

“Your aunt with the six toes and a mustache?”

“
Hell
no.”

I shifted on the bed, looking for comfort and pressing a throw pillow behind me. “Okay, this game is so old right now,” I said around another wince.

“Okay. Cameron. Cameron is getting married.”

Ouch. Ze liked to front like she and Cameron
used to be
nothing but friends. Yeah, okay.

“You okay?”

“I’m cool. Why wouldn’t I be cool? I’m so cool, I’m icy. I’m so straight, I’m a ruler. I am
so—”

“Okay, I get it,” I said dryly. “Are you going?”

“If I have nothing else to do.”

“Well, since you’re so cool and so straight, let’s play guess who went to jail?”

“No,” Ze said, drawing it out. “Who?”

“Rah. Dom helped the police catch him.”

The line went quiet just like I knew it would.

I gave her time to process that, reaching behind me to massage my lower back as my eyes caught sight of television. The police were leading someone out of a church.
Wait a minute that’s my parents’ church
.

I sat up straighter.
And that’s…Reverend DeMark
.

“Ooooh, shit,” I said, my first cuss word in ages.

“What’s wrong, Mo?”

I picked up the remote and turned up the volume. “Hold on one sec.”

“…the identity of the fifteen-year-old minor Reverend DeMark is accused of having a sexual relationship with is not being revealed, but she is reported to be the daughter of one of his longtime parishioners.”

My jaw nearly hit my chest as one police officer pushed the Rev’s head down to assist him into the back of the police car.

“Mo, what happened.”

“I’ll have to tell you later.”

“Why?”

I looked down at my lap. “My water just broke.”