Thicker Than Water (28 page)

“So Sash, are we still doing the big three day wedding like you were gonna do before?”

When Sasha was going to marry Chauncey she was going to do everything big, but now she wanted the opposite, because her feelings for Mike were the opposite.

“No, no it’s going to be small. Right in a little church in Atlanta, nothing fancy.”

She had asked Tatum to be her maid of honor, and Tatum agreed but for some reason it wasn’t the same excitement that was there when she had asked her last year. Sasha could see something was bothering Tatum and although the letter had them both shaken up, she had a feeling that it was something else.

“Tatum, what are you up here for? Your brother’s gone, you don’t go to school anymore, you hate your job, you have the girls, you need to leave.”

Tatum laughed.

“Sash, I am not moving to Atlanta, it’s out of the question.” Sasha took another sip of her wine and pursed her lips before answering.

“I’m not talking about Atlanta.”

They held eye contact and both looked at each other for about ten seconds and neither said anything.

Tatum had contemplated over the course of the evening packing up and going to the resort, she played over and over how it would be to see him, to touch him. It was no doubt that Tatum wanted to grow old with Ree, she wasn’t interested in even holding a conversation with anyone else. But would he still feel the same way about her?

“What am I supposed to do Sasha? Fly down to Jamaica and live happily ever after, no money, no back up plan, no reassurance that he will even want me there? It’s been a year.” Tatum made excuses, but Sasha protested.

“He still is thinking of you. He wouldn’t have sent that.” Tatum just looked at her as she let her imagination run for a minute but then snapped back into reality.

“Please, Sash. Shit like that just doesn’t happen in real life. This isn’t the movies.”

She picked up her glass and finished her wine trying to force away these ridiculous ideas she was considering.

“No Tatum you’re wrong. It
is
a movie. You just have to decide what part you want to play, and how you want yours to end. That’s what I did.”

Tatum looked at her friend that she had always given advice to, her friend that always needed the answers, and she realized that Sasha was right. Everything that they had been through that led to this moment, the love, the lies, the death, the pain, the betrayal, it had all led to this moment. Their lives were changed, their hearts had been broken, their friendship had been shaken but not shattered, and in the end it was them, they had survived. And here Sasha was, telling her that she still had the power to take control of her own destiny, to determine her ‘movie’ so to speak.

Although she had no control over the circumstances that had created her movie, Sasha was right, she had altered her finale. She had made the decision to settle down with a straight guy, which loved her and her daughter, and was free of the drama that Sasha had seen enough of. She had created that happy ending, or as close to one as she could get.

Tatum smiled at her best friend, and at that moment she decided that she too, would determine how hers ended.
Fuck it.
The curtain was up, Act II was in play, and this time, in this flick called Tatum’s life, she was in the director’s chair.
Lights, Camera, Action!

Excerpt from Heaven’s Hell by Takerra Allen

“Mothafucka I can’t!” Jhenelle screamed at the top of her lungs.

It was hot as hell in the cramped room of Muhlenburg Hospital, but she had the shakes. She needed a hit.

The nurses insisted on her pushing and pushing and pushing this big headed bitch out, but all Jhenelle could think of was the glass dick she’d rather be sucking on. She turned to her lover, her pimp, her supplier, and her soon to be, any minute now, baby’s father.

“Ooooooh daddy I need a taste,” she tried to whisper, but was unaware she was just softly whining.

One of the nurses just looked at her and rolled her eyes. This was the third junkie she had assisted in a birth today. What she didn’t know was that Jhenelle hadn’t had a hit for 8 months, up until last night. Sam had made sure of that.

He told her that she could smoke all the dope she wanted, but his daughter wasn’t going to be no junkie before she even had a choice, so she was going to have to put her habit on hold.

No, his daughter, she was going to be a stone cold fox! Sam was sure he was going to breed one of the best hoes to run through the East Coast!

However, Jhenelle had slipped up on Sam’s stash last night and got herself so excited, she just felt like she was going to bust! Just when that good old smoke got to filling her lungs and clouding her head, sending orgasmic shocks all through her body, her damn water broke.
Aint that bout a bitch!
Sam whooped her ass all the way to the hospital!

“Push, push, push!” The nurse urged sounding more like a drill sergeant than a cheerleader.

Jhenelle started crying, not out of pain, but out of frustration.
Please lord just take her out of me. Get her out lord, I don’t want her, I don’t want her
.

And the lord answered her prayers, with one last weak hearted push, a head full of black locks, followed by a beautiful brown face and tiny body, came sliding out of Jhenelle as everyone gasped and cheered. Jhenelle fell out on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. As the nurses cleaned her up and the doctor cut her chord, Sam rubbed coke along Jhenelle’s gum line.

She smiled softly, mistaking his way of keeping her dependant, for love, as she closed her eyes and tried to feel a light high. The young nurse, mesmerized by the beautiful little girl held her close and rocked her as the doctor looked at her with a face that said
‘Give the baby to her mother!’

She turned her nose up and walked slowly to the mother and father.

“You want to hold your baby?”

Jhenelle waved her hand motioning the nurse to go away as Sam took the baby and looked at her more out of examination than love and joy. The nurse felt very uneasy about this couple, although she had seen this case several times. She tried to detach herself from the many sad cases she had seen daily.

Jhenelle sat up in the bed with a twisted look on her face.
Who the fuck does she think she is?

Sam just looked nonchalantly but shook his head at her disapprovingly.
A
fox named Joy? Nah!

It had to be something that was different, something that everyone wanted but didn’t have. A name that said in one word that she could take a man places that he’d never seen before and probably would never see again, a name that could pull you in, and keep you.

The nurse then smiled and gasped at the same time. She had the perfect name for this little bundle of joy with beautiful dark locks and angelic eyes.

“How about Heaven?” She asked elatedly.

Sam nodded his head and rubbed his chin. Jhenelle waved her hand and pointed at the nurse as if to say
‘that’s the one’
but was really saying
‘bitch whatever, just get out, so I can get some more of that treat’
.

Sam gave his final approval.

“Heaven. I like it. Heaven, yeah.”

The nurse smiled and went to get all of the procedures settled as she took the little angel to the incubator as Sam fed Jhenelle some more of her treat. On that day, July 4, 1991, Heaven blessed the earth.

“I know you be talking bout me!”

Oh god, not again.
Heaven tried to ignore her.

“Bitch I know you hear me, you better keep my name out ya mothafuckin mouth!”

Heaven walked hurriedly through the hallways trying to ignore the three girls behind her screaming obscenities and throwing pencils at her. She could hear their voices closer and knew they were approaching her through the crowded peers that separated her from them.

“You better stop talking bout me before I cut ya hair you stuck up bitch!”

Heaven grabbed her long hair and twisted it, then stuck in down the back of her shirt. She rolled her eyes as she neared the corner that led to the Gym locker rooms.

Shaniqua knew that Heaven had not been talking about her. Heaven didn’t even have anyone to talk about her to; she was a loner in every sense of the word. If it were not for Heaven’s undeniably beauty, she could probably get away with going through life unnoticed, except by her teachers, of course. Heaven naturally excelled in all of her schoolwork and for that reason, her final year at Plainfield High School was full of decisions on her many available full scholarships to top colleges all over the country.

Brriinggg!
The second bell sounded as some kids scurried off to their third period classes, most did not, as they hung in the halls, laughing and talking and some looking at the show Shaniqua put on daily. Heaven sighed deeply knowing she would be late for her Phys. Ed class. This was the third time this week that she had taken the long way to avoid walking past Shaniqua and her crew leaving their Special Resources class. It wasn’t that she was scared of them, or scared of anyone, she just avoided confrontation until it was totally necessary. Not to mention the fact that Shaniqua and her crew did not fight fair, one time they tried to jump Heaven with broken glass beer bottles. That was the first time Heaven ever ran from anybody.

Just as Heaven turned the corner she bumped hard into Ricky Morris, the finest brother in the whole high school. If it weren’t for Heaven’s vow to dis-attach herself from anything remotely related to her high school experience, she would have acted on her fantasies of late night phone calls and long walks home with Ricky Morris. He smiled down at her and then looked past her at Shaniqua and posse, as everyone came to halt.

“Why yall gotta fuck wit her all the time? Yall jealous or something?” Ricky asked in his cool choppy lingo, the other dudes who had once been laughing at Heaven were now turning the tables and trying to side with Ricky.

“Yeah they jealous!” One boy shouted.

“They all bald-headed!” Another one added.

Heaven saw this as a scene too juvenile for her liking, so in attempt to not be even later than she was, she maneuvered past Ricky and headed for the locker rooms. A teacher came out of her classroom and confronted Shaniqua and her friends about all of the ruckus, as everyone began clearing out.

Ricky lightly jogged behind Heaven. As she went to pull the door open to go into the girl’s locker room, Ricky held all of his body weight, shifted onto one hand, against the door to prevent her from opening it. He smiled at her.

“Where was all that sass when Shaniqua and them was chasing you down the hall?” He asked, more playfully than anything. She rolled her eyes and pulled her hair out of her shirt as it fell down to her lower back.

“First of all, I wasn’t running from Shaniqua. And second of all, you don’t need to be concerned with my sass or anything else that I may or may not possess. Excuse me, I’m late for class.”

She tried to push him out of the way but barely managed to nudge him. He laughed at her.

“Listen, you might as well stop frontin and just say you gonna be my girl. Then you can go to class and I can get outta ya way, and meet you after school to drive you home.”

Heaven imagined briefly riding in a car with him, having everyone looking at her, having fun, living the life of a regular teenage girl. Her daydream was cut short by the scenario that will play out if she got in a car with him, and let alone came home with him, Khalil would flip.

Heaven giggled lightly, she liked Ricky. She liked his youth, he was fun. He didn’t take her too serious and he made her feel in control, like a woman. Ricky tilted his head and looked into her light brown eyes.