Chasing Butterflies (13 page)

T
wo torturous weeks later...

The pilot makes an announcement over the speaker. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. I’d like to welcome you aboard Virgin America flight one-sixty-two’s nonstop service from Los Angeles to Newark Liberty International Airport. Once we get airborne today, our flight time will be five hours and thirty minutes . . .”

Omar Davis is
the
father.

My
biological father.

I’m still shocked by the news. And the test results. It’s just so much to take in.

Honestly, I prayed that it wasn’t true. That someone was playing some sick, twisted joke. But it’s as real as it can be, ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent real.

It took a week of crying after the DNA test results confirmed paternity, then another week of me crying as Daddy’s attorney met with me and discussed the news. Legally, he has no rights to me, but I am still a minor so someone needs to care for me until I am legally able to take care of myself, which is where Daddy’s attorney comes in.

Aunt Terri said I’d be able to live with her once she settles whatever it is she needs to settle. And the attorney is in agreement with that. So the plan is this: I go to New Jersey with, uh, um . . . Omar for three weeks while Aunt Terri takes care of whatever it is she has to do with the court and Daddy’s will and whatever else. Then I’ll be flying out to Georgia to live with her.

“Just for a few weeks,”
Aunt Terri had said as she helped me pack. But there was something in the way she shifted her eyes from mine that had me question her true intentions. I have to trust that she’ll keep her word. That this is only
temporary
.

Boarding this plane was one of the most difficult things I’ve done. Daddy dying was hard. But leaving him, his grave, behind is—

Omar grunts.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shifting in his seat, clutching the armrest.

He seems anxious.

No.

He
is
anxious.

He’s scared to death of flying. Although he said he’d never been on a plane before, just the idea of being up so high in sky makes him nervous. He thought I was going to be okay with traveling thousands of miles across country by Greyhound.

No, no, no. Not!

And I wasn’t riding on Amtrak, either.

So here we are.

I glance over at him. “It won’t be that bad,” I offer sympathetically. It’s the least I can do.

He forces out a chuckle. “Yeah, a’ight. If you say so.”

“I guess you’re not used to flying.” It’s a statement.

He shakes his head. “Nah. Not my thing. I ain’t even gonna front, yo. I’m mad nervous.”

I look at him.

Surprised to hear that this thick-muscled man with the multiple tattoos is afraid of flying. “Well, why are you flying now if you’re afraid of planes?”

“It’s all for you.”

I turn my head toward the window and stare out.

I touch the butterfly around my neck, then press it up to my lips.

Thoughts of Daddy resurface.

Oh, how I wish I could be one of those big, white, puffy clouds.

Floating.

It doesn’t take long before my emotions get the best of me.

A tear slips from the corner of my eye, and I quickly swipe it with a finger before it can run down my face. All I can think about is Daddy. And how I can’t let him go. How I have to hold on, to keep his memory alive. Not just inside of me, but all around me.

I sniffle and wipe away more tears.

I can’t believe this is really happening to me.

I can feel Omar’s eyes on me.

“You good?” he wants to know, touching my arm.

I cringe inwardly. “Yeah.”

“You sure e’erything a’ight?”

I just said
yeah,
dang. Let it go.

But he doesn’t.

“You can tell me whatever’s on ya mind, a’ight?”

I give him a confused look.

What does he want me to say?

That I’m happy being uprooted from my life?

That I’m looking forward to whatever might lie ahead in New Jersey, surrounded by a bunch of strangers?

That I’m excited about being around a man that I don’t know?

That I’m eager to build a relationship with him, the ex-con?

No
, everything isn’t fricking all right!

It’s horrible!

I don’t know what to expect.

All I know is my life in Long Beach.

Not on a plane with
him
.

I nod. Then I turn to look at him, not really wanting to, but needing to. Needing him to see the contradiction in my words. “I’m fine.”

He looks deep into my eyes, and for a split second I think he sees it.

That I am really not okay.

That I’m horrified.

That I am hurting.

And lost.

But he simply grins, all crooked, and says, “Cool, cool.” Then he widens his grin and shakes his head. “Damn. I swear, yo. You look so much like ya moms, for real for real. It’s crazy. I know I keep sayin’ it, but... damn. It’s got me buggin’.”

And now I’m dying to know—no. I
need
to know—how the two of them met. I need to know what it was about him that made her gravitate to him. I need to know what kind of girl she was to get wrapped up in a guy like him, to have his baby.

Why didn’t she get rid of me?

Maybe she should have.

My mother’s not here to ask. So I have to, however I can, sift through every piece of this sordid puzzle, and try to fit each piece into its proper place until I have a full picture. I need to understand this craziness, because from where I’m sitting, I simply do not see any logic in any of this. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

I study him for a second, then ask, “How did you and my mother meet?” I shift in my seat, then stretch my legs.

He rubs his chin. Pulls at his goatee. Then he says, “I peeped her at the mall. Menlo Park.” He smiled. “She had on this li’l short yellow sundress that showed her pretty legs, walkin’ up outta Macy’s. She was bad as
fu
. . . she was mad sexy. Word is bond. I stepped up ’n’ tried to holla at ’er real quick, but she looked me up ’n’ down, then turned her head, like she wasn’t beat.” He chuckles. “But I was a cool muhf . . . I looked good ’n’ had mad swag, so baggin’ chicks was never a problem for me. And the fact that she dissed me had me wantin’ to bag ’er.”

He grins. “I followed ya moms ’round the whole mall. I was determined to break her down ’til she gave in. Whatever store she went in, I went in. When she went into the bathroom, I waited outside for ’er. When she grabbed somethin’ to eat at the food court, I stepped up ’n’ paid for it.”

He shakes his head, smiling. “She finally gave in ’n’ let me holla at ’er. I asked for the digits ’n’ just when I thought I was all in, her moms came from outta nowhere ’n’ shut it down . . .”

“She was not havin’ it.” He chuckles. “She snatched ya moms up ’n’ dragged her away from me. I was like,
damn
. My boys clowned me for weeks after that ’cause they peeped the whole thing.”

“So then how’d you end up hooking up with her?” I ask, twisting my whole body in my chair so I can face him.

“At the rink.”

The rink?

He must notice the quizzical look on my face.

“The skatin’ rink. She ’n’ two of her girls was at this party some cat from around the way was havin’.”

“Oh.”

He laughs. Then he tells me how he walked over and tried to have a conversation with her, but she skated off with her friends in tow, giggling. A few minutes later, she skated her way back over and told him if he wanted to talk to her, he’d better put on a pair of skates.

So he did.

“I bust my azz mad times, tryna impress her.” He laughs, shaking his head. “I knew then. She was the one. It took me almost three months to finally bag her.”

Bag her?

I frown in confusion.

“My bad. I mean before she finally gave me the time of day.”

“And my grandparents
let
her date
you
?” I say, shocked.

He shakes his head. “Nah. We had to sneak; feel me? They hated me.”

Hmm. You don’t say.

The conversation finally shifts to his family. He tells me he has one sister and a niece and his mom. But his mother is in Florida for the summer, visiting her three sisters. She goes every year from May to September.

“But she’s hoping to see you when she gets back,” he says.

“Oh. That’s nice,” I say, forcing myself to sound interested. I ask him her name.

“Pearline. But e’eryone calls her Pearlie-May.”

I smile with my lips closed, but my smile doesn’t reach my eyes. I am only smiling out of courtesy because I have nothing else to say to that.

After a few excruciating moments of silence between us, I finally say, “You never really said where I’d be staying. Do you have your own place?”

He rubs his chin, slowly shaking his head. “Nah, not yet. I’m still tryna get on my feet, feel me?”

Okay, so he’s homeless, too...

“I’m crashin’ at my moms’ crib while she’s gone. But it’s all good. She has a three-bedroom. You gonna share a room wit’ ya cousin, Sha’Quita . . .”

I bite my lip and then look down at my hands.

I’m instantly haunted by an image of a loudmouthed girl with a gold tooth and multicolored braids swinging down to her butt, popping chewing gum and twirling a razor between her heavily jeweled fingers, sneering at me.

“But we call her Quita,” he rattles on, saving me from the rest of the imagery. “She’s a li’l knucklehead sometimes, but she’s a’ight; feel me . . . ?”

I cut my eye at him.

Right now, all I want to do is stare out the window. No, no. I want to climb out of the window and jump. Get lost in the puffy white clouds beneath us. And if I’m lucky enough, Daddy might catch me in his arms.

“Hopefully the two of you will click,” he continues, snatching any hope of an escape away from me. “But, uh, anyway, you’ll crash in the room wit’ her.”

My stomach quakes.

I don’t like this business of sharing a room with some girl I don’t know. Oh, no. I’ve never had to share a room with anyone, not even a bathroom.

So how is this going to work, even if for only a short while?

I swallow. But I say nothing. What’s there to say? He seems to already have it all figured out.

“It’ll be tight for a minute, know what I’m sayin’ . . .”

No, I don’t know
what
you’re saying.

And I do not like any of it one bit.

I swallow. I’m almost afraid to ask, but I have to know. “Does she have a house?”

He chuckles. “Nah, nah. We live in the projects.”

My stomach drops.

* * *

When the plane finally lands at Newark International Airport, everything inside of me starts to shake. I feel as if I’m about to throw up. I’m having second thoughts.

No, I never stopped having second thoughts.

Omar pulls out his phone and powers it on before the seat belt warning sign stops illuminating.

He speaks into his phone. “Yo, what’s good, man? I need you to come scoop me. Nah, nah . . . I just touched down. You got me? Oh, word? Damn. A’ight. It’s all love, bruh. Yeah, yeah, baby girl wit’ me . . .”

I cringe.

“No doubt. A’ight. Later.”

He tells me we’re catching the AirTrain to Penn Station, then catching another train to some town, and then a taxi to our final destination. He says the name of the town, but I am not listening.

When the taxi finally pulls up to our destination, the cab driver pulls over to the curb, then waits for Omar to pay him. He fishes out a handful of money from out his front pocket, then hands the driver a hundred-dollar bill. He tells the driver to keep the change, then opens the door and climbs out.

He reaches a hand in and helps me out next. The cab driver pops the trunk. Omar pulls my bags out, then slams the trunk shut. I glance up at the apartments and almost faint. My mouth drops open. I can’t believe my eyes. It’s a run-down looking building. The building next door to his apartment building looks dirtier and more torn down than this one. Dilapidated. Some of the windows are boarded up.

O
mar slings one of my bags over his shoulder and grips the other in his hand as we trek up eight flights of stairs. He curses under his breath because neither of the two elevators is working. It’s hot and musty in the stairwell.

When we get to the eighth floor, I follow him down a long hall; there’s lots of loud music blasting and loud talking from behind red-colored doors. Yelling and screaming pours out of one of the apartments as we make our way down the piss-stained hallway. Finally, he stops and I’m standing behind him. He sets one of my bags down—as I cringe—on the nasty floor, then pulls out a set of keys.

He slides his key, then turns the knob. The door to apartment 8E pushes open.

And we step in.

The door shuts behind us.

“C’mon,” he says, heading down a hallway. “I’ma take you to ya room.”

I try to take in everything as I follow behind him. But the thing that sticks out the most is the carpet.

It’s filthy. It’s not pissy-smelling like the floor out in the hall, it just has a stench.

“Yo, Sha’Quita,” Omar says, half knocking while turning the doorknob to her bedroom. Music blasts from the other side of the door. I don’t know the name of the female artist singing, but the guy’s hook is asking if she loves the way he loves her body, or something like that.

Omar swings open the door, and we are greeted by an odor that almost takes my breath away.

The room reeks of... smoke and hot, musty funk.

My stomach flips.

“Yo, what the
fu
—”

I gasp.

The room is filthy.

Clothes are strewn everywhere.

There are candy wrappers and empty potato chip bags and empty pizza boxes and empty soda cans covering an already stained beige carpet.

I’ve never seen such nastiness.

There are dirty dishes and half-empty glasses left up on the dresser.

And—and—and . . . one window has a—what I assume used to be white—bed sheet nailed over it, while beige dirty blinds hang from the other window.

The walls are covered in chipped powder blue paint and posters of Tamar Braxton and Keyshia Cole and K. Michelle.

I wince.

But that’s not what has me standing here, looking around in disbelief, my eyes practically popping out of their sockets.

No.

There’s a naked girl on her knees between some long-legged boy’s thighs, her head bobbing up and down in his lap. He’s stretched out on the queen-size mattress that’s on the floor under one of the windows, the one with the nasty bed sheet hanging from it.

Mouth slightly parted, eyes closed, the guy seems to be enjoying himself.

Omar drops my bags and charges toward them.

The boy’s eyes flutter open. “Oh,
sheeeeeeit
!” he snaps, trying to push the girl off of him. But he’s not fast enough. Omar is on her, snatching her up off her knees by the back of her neck.

“Yo, Quita! What the hell you think you doin’, yo?!” Omar snaps. He tosses her across the room. “You wildin’ for real, yo!”

She doesn’t even seem bothered by me standing here. “I’m doin’ me,” she says, crossing her arms over her large breasts. My eyes bounce from her to Omar to her naked friend to the walls to the windows, then down at the floor.

“Yo, shut ya dumb-azz up,” Omar snaps. “Yeah, you doin’ you all right. Playin’ ya’self like a real bird, for real for real.”

The naked boy hops up from the floored mattress, trying to cover himself. Omar scowls at him. “Yo, Money, git yo’ clothes on ’n’ step ’fore I crack ya jaw.” Omar snatches up the boy’s clothes and throws them at him. He scurries and catches them, quickly slipping into his underwear. I try not to look. Try not to notice his deflated excitement. But it’s hard
not
to see it.

I stare over at a Tamar poster.

But out of the corner of my eye, I still see him. He’s stuffing himself into his jeans, before rushing out the room, brushing by me.

Omar glares at the Sha’Quita girl. “Yo, I thought I tol’ you to have this effen room cleaned, yo. You knew I was comin’ back today.”

She sucks her teeth, pulling a white T-shirt on. “Well, I
forgot
,” she says nastily. She shoots me a dirty look. “What the hell you lookin’ at? And who are you, anyway?”

“I’m—”

“She’s ya cousin,” Omar answers for me. “Nia.”

“
Mmph
. Good for her.”

I swallow.

She snatches open a dresser drawer, then pulls out a teeny pair of jean shorts and shimmies them up over her wide naked hips. “I ain’t invite her here.”

“Well, I did. She’s
my
seed . . .”

“And she’s
your
family.”

She frowns. “She ain’t none of my family. She looks like an Oreo. Ole Wonder Bread lookin’ azz. And she prolly ain’t even ya daughter, anyway. Who pops up after all these years tryna claim someone as they daddy?”

Blank stare.

I can’t believe she is standing here saying all this as if I’m here to claim some long-lost fortune. I keep from rolling my eyes at the absurdity of what I’m hearing.

“You just gettin’ outta prison,” she continues, “an’ all of sudden you somebody’s daddy.
Mmph
. Yeah, okay. Let me know how it all works out for you.”

“Yo, Quita, I’m warnin’ you, yo. Watch ya’self.”

“I’m just sayin’. Where they doin’ that at?”

I blink.

Omar grits his teeth. “Word is bond, Quita. Ya mouth too slick, yo. Don’t have me yoke you up.”

She flicks him a dismissive wave. “Boy, bye. Put ya hands on me if you want ’n’ I’ma call ya parole officer.”

“Yo, you sound stupid as hell, li’l girl. I ain’t on parole.”

“Oh. Well, then don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just sayin’.”

I eye Omar.

His nose flares.

He shakes his head. “I’m tellin’ you, yo. Keep talkin’ slick, a’ight.”

“It’s my mouth,” she argues. “I can say whatever I want. It’s called freedom of speech.”

Omar sighs. He sees there’s no winning with her. “Whatever, man. Just don’t let me find out you comin’ at my daughter crazy, or I’ma bust yo head open, you know what I’m sayin’.”

“Yeah, whatever. Just make sure”—she gives me an evil eye—“your
so-called
daughter stays the hell outta my stuff.”

And this is how hell begins...

Me, standing in the middle of a filthy, funky room, staring into the snarling face of a girl named
Sha’Quita
.