I Saw Your Profile (2 page)

    
Arianna walked up to
Janelle and pointed her finger in the short woman’s face.

    
“There’s nothing
rational about this whole situation, especially you accusing me of murder after
I’ve done nothing but be a friend to you.”

    
Nicole grabbed
Arianna’s hand and gently pulled her away. “Can we respect the dead here? This
is
a funeral home.”

  
  
“You need to get a life,” Arianna
spat out, ignoring Nicole.
      
“Just
because I said I would get revenge on the son of a bitch doesn’t mean I killed
him. Besides, what do you care? After everything he did to you, you ought to be
happy he’s dead.”

Janelle started to cry. “How can
you be so cold? He didn’t deserve to die. You act like you don’t care that he’s
dead.”

Arianna exhaled loudly.

    
“Why? ‘Cause I don’t
whine and cry all the time like you?
    
You reap what you sow,
Janelle.”

 
    
“Arianna and I have
been there for you,” Nicole said. “Why are you doing this?”

    
“’Cause Arianna killed
him,” Janelle said. “You know it just like I do. Murder is wrong. I don’t care
who does it or why.”

    
Arianna tied the belt
around her jacket. “Let’s go, Nicole. I’m not going to stand here and listen to
this anymore.”

    
Janelle walked up to
Arianna and stared her in the eye.

    
“Don’t worry. You
won’t have to listen to me anymore. But you will have to listen to the police
after I tell them what you did.”

    
“And your word is
going to mean something?” Arianna asked sarcastically.

    
Janelle smirked. “No,
but the emails I saved will.”

Chapter Two

The
stereo was blasting so loudly Arianna could hear it from
the car as she pulled in the driveway of her West Mount Airy home.

    
Inside, she called her
son’s name over the noise.

    
“Amir! Amir! Turn that
crap down!”

    
She slammed the door
and stood at the bottom of the staircase, glaring upwards. She planted her
hands on her hips as if the stance and her gaze were enough to quiet the
thunderous beats booming from Amir’s room.

    
When silence didn’t
come, she threw her jacket and purse on the plum love seat by the front door
and stomped upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. She banged on his bedroom
door. “Did you hear me?”

    
As he opened the door,
a combination of underarm and dirty sock funk assaulted her nostrils. She
backed away and waved her hand in front of her face. Inside there were half a
dozen teenage boys of various ethnicities.

    
Mount Airy’s diversity
was one of the reasons she chose the urban suburb in Northwest Philadelphia.

     
“What’s up, Ma?”
Her sixteen-year-old’s pecs bulged underneath a tight wife beater. A look of
agitation was smeared across his bright yellow face. His male bonding session
had been crashed.

    
“Hi, Mrs. Crawford,”
the boy-men said in unison.

    
“Singleton. Her last
name is Singleton,” said Amir, reminding his friends that his mother didn’t
share his last name.

    
“Hey boys.” Arianna
was used to answering to Amir’s father’s name even though they were never
married. She didn’t bother to correct them.
 

 
    
“What’s up Amir is
that damn noise you call music. Turn it down. And what are all these boys doing
over here? Did you do your homework, yet?”

    
“We’re just listening
to music and I didn’t have any homework.”

    
“This place smells
like a locker room. Light incense in here or something. How can you stand it?”

    
“I don’t smell
nothin.”

    
“That’s ‘cause you’re
used to it. Anybody call?”

    
“Yeah. I wrote it
down. Here.”

    
Amir handed her the
telephone bill. Detective Dennis Mitchell was scribbled on the back along with
a California phone number.

     
“It’s a school
night, Amir. Your friends need to go home in an hour.”

    
“Come on, Ma. It’s
only seven o’clock.”

    
“You heard me. An
hour.”

     
She went across
the hall to Akilah’s room.

    
“Hi Mommy.” Her
daughter’s face lit up when she saw her mother. She was combing the hair on one
of the many dolls spread across her bed and watching a movie on her TV/VCR
combo.

     
“Hi baby. How
was school?” She kissed her daughter’s butter colored cheek and stroked the
long, brown braids that cascaded down her back. Akilah didn’t have her father’s
complexion, but she had his features. Large, deep-set eyes and a nose that
peaked like a mountain at the tip.

    
“Okay. How was work?”

    
“Fine. How did you do
on your spelling test?”

    
“I got a hundred.
Wanna see?”

    
“Sure.”

    
Arianna was proud of
her daughter. She got good grades and had a sweet personality when she wasn’t
mouthing off to her brother. Arianna had nobody to blame but herself for that,
though. Akilah got her smart mouth honest.

    
She shared credit for
the little girl’s brains with Michael, her dead husband and Akilah’s father.

    
Michael Singleton was
fifteen years older than Arianna when they met in the produce section of a
grocery store. Green, seedless grapes were on her list, peaches on his.

    
They exchanged smiles.

    
He caught up with her
later in the canned vegetable aisle. “I don’t mean to bother you, but you are a
very attractive woman. Can I have a moment of your time?”

    
He got thirty.

    
Michael was a
recruiter for the Navy. He was the color of midnight with teeth that sparkled
in the dark. A career Navy man, he left Alabama after high school and signed up
with Uncle Sam to escape the South and see the world. He spoke with a charming
accent, not one of those slow, Southern drawls, and was a deacon at a Baptist
church.

   
 
Since the Navy had been his life, there
had been no room for a wife and kids. When he met Arianna, he was ready for
both. A new career was also calling his name. Uncle Sam got the heave-ho when
he opened a management-consulting firm.

    
They were married a
year later. Michael treated her like a queen and, his stepson, Amir, like a
prince. Akilah came shortly after they jumped the broom and he doted on her.

    
When he was diagnosed
with prostrate cancer, Arianna thought her world was over. When he died, she
nearly went with him, but she couldn’t. She had two kids to take care of.

    
Michael left her with
enough money to be comfortable, but she hated being a single parent again.

    
She started dating two
years later, but no man she met ever measured up to Michael. Akilah was a
constant reminder of what Arianna had lost. The little girl didn’t remember her
father. For Arianna, that was a blessing and a curse. Her daughter wouldn’t
have to grieve for the father she never knew, but she also wouldn’t have him to
protect her or prepare her for life; to be her role model. To show her how men
should treat women and take care of their family.
          
To
let Akilah know how she should be loved.

    
A loving father was
something Arianna never had. She always felt she got lucky with Michael. Her
choices before him left much to be desired. So had her options since.

    
Akilah wasn’t ready
for lectures about boys, though. At ten, she was a diva with prissy ways she
certainly didn’t inherit from her mother.

   
 
Dolls, make-up, fake nails and singers
with great bodies but no talent captivated her attention. Arianna never owned a
doll and played football with her brothers when she was Akilah’s age. She was a
basketball fanatic and would out scream any man in front of a TV set during a
game. She got season tickets for the Seventy-Sixers as soon as she moved to the
City of Brotherly Love.

    
Akilah handed her
mother the math test. “Here. See. I got ‘em all right. My teacher drew a star
next to the hundred.”

    
“That’s great,
princess. I am very proud of you.” She hugged and kissed her.

    
“What’s for dinner?”

    
“Chicken and rice for
you. Veggies and rice for me.”

    
“When can we eat?”

    
“When I finish
cooking.”

    
Akilah whined. “Maaaa.
I know that. How long?”

    
“As long as it takes.
Did you do your homework?”

    
“Yeah.”

    
“All of it? You didn’t
need help with anything?”

    
“Nope. It was easy.”

     
“Okay. I’m going
to cook.”

     
“Oh yeah. A man
called for you.”

     
“Who?”

    
“I forgot his name,
but he was a cop.”

    
“How do you know?”

     
“He said he was
a detective. He called a little while ago.
  
Amir was upstairs with his friends
blasting his music. He didn’t hear the phone, so I answered it.”

    
“Okay. Thanks.”

    
She looked at the
envelope in her hands.

    
“All right, baby. Good
job on your math test. I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

    
Arianna walked to the
end of the hall to her room. She plopped on her four-poster bed, grabbing the
cordless phone from the nightstand. She stared at the writing on the envelope
as she dialed Kenny Washington’s cell phone, hoping to hear his comforting
voice on the other line. His voice mail picked up, instead.

    
“Damn, I forgot he had
a gig tonight.”

     
She called
Nicole. Voicemail again.

    
She threw the envelope
on the nightstand and dragged herself downstairs to the living room. She put a
CD in the surround sound system that sat among several electronic devices
hosted by a large maple entertainment center.

     
She grabbed her
mail from the coffee table in the middle of the room and eased onto a long sofa
that sat along the wall across from the entertainment center.

    
The sofa matched the
loveseat and was decorated with plush plum and gold pillows. She pressed her
back into one as she ripped open the bills, tossing them into a wicker basket
at the side of the couch.

    
Arianna wanted to lie
down and enjoy the music, but she could almost hear Akilah’s stomach growling
upstairs.
 
She forced herself from
the couch and went back to the stereo, turning up the volume so the music could
traverse the walls that separated the living room from the kitchen.

 
    
The living room was
connected to a formal dining room on one side and a den that served as her
office on the other. Both rooms offered entry to an eat-in kitchen painted the
color of cornmeal. A border of red and yellow flowers graced the top of the
walls. The brightly decorated space helped put Arianna in the mood to cook, an
activity for which she had great talent, yet considered a thankless chore.

    
She was jamming to
Remy Shand’s “Take a Message” and pouring sautéed vegetables over a plate of
brown rice when the phone rang. She checked the caller ID. She didn’t recognize
the number, but California showed on the display. She returned it to the
charger without answering it.

Before she could holler for the
kids not to pick it up, Akilah came in the kitchen holding a phone. “Mommy,
it’s that detective again.”

    
She took the phone and
put her hand over the mouthpiece.

 
   
“What did you tell him?”

     
“That I would go
get you.”

     
“Well, I’m
cooking dinner now, honey. Can you tell him that I’m busy and take a message?”

     
“Okay.”

    
Akilah took the phone
and repeated her mother’s words.

    
“He said for you to
call him.”

     
“Okay. Thanks.”

 
     
She handed her
daughter a plate.

     
“Go tell your
brother dinner’s ready.”

     
“Okay.”

     
The CD had
started from the beginning and “Way I Feel” was playing when Arianna went to
her office with her plate.
  
She
sat at the computer desk and checked her email.

    
There were nine new
messages in her inbox. One was from Janelle Carter. She clicked on it.

Hi!
You should be hearing from the Los Angeles police soon. Remember what you told
me? You reap what you sow. Now it’s your turn.

Janelle.

    
Arianna’s legs began
to shake underneath the desk. She clicked delete.