Pointe of No Return: Giving You All I Got (15 page)

Demi shook from her fingers to her body. She couldn’t stop trembling and tears ran down her face as she looked at her father for help, but he turned his eyes away.

“Oh, you want daddy to rescue you? See, daddy is cheating. And if I divorce him I can take all he has so daddy can’t piss mommy off, baby girl,” Dorane told Demi.

Demi cried as she shook her head. “What did I do to you?” She needed the answer. She never understood why her mother was so hard on her. Ever since she was little girl the love had always been bittersweet.

“You ruined me,” Dorane answered.

“Dorane, that’s enough!” Isaac intervened.

But it was too late. Demi couldn’t hear anymore and truthfully, it had been enough years ago, but now Demi was old enough to leave and that’s what she did.

Demi never understood why her friends never wanted to come to her house, but now she knew. They saw what she didn’t see in her own mother. Dorane was the devil. Demi used to appreciate her mother pushing her all of those days when she was tired or just wanted to play and be normal like the other kids in her neighborhood. But now she knew, Dorane had a problem and the problem wasn’t with Demi, but it was with herself.

Dorane wanted so badly for Demi to become her, but Demi was not her mother. Demi loved dance, that she could never deny, but she was in love with being in love just as much. Dorane didn’t believe ambitious people could have both, but Demi couldn’t wait to prove her wrong.

She ran to Papa and begged for him to take her home. Papa hopped up after he had dozed off. “What happened?” he asked.

“I just wanna go to sleep,” she told him. Her mother’s words replayed over and over again in her head and she couldn’t get them out. Sleep would help, sleep would rescue her from her misery and that’s what she needed right now. Sleep.

“You coming to my house?” Papa asked.

“I don’t wanna be anywhere else,” Demi admitted.

Papa knew she was in her feelings so he would save the rest of his questions for tomorrow.

They made the hour drive back to the city and Papa undressed Demi and laid her body down under the covers in the spot she deemed as her own many months ago.

“Where you going?” she asked him.

“To smoke real quick,” he said.

Demi closed her eyes and as much as she wanted to hate her mama and her daddy too, she couldn’t. Instead, she prayed for them and went to sleep.

***

Demi flipped the channels on the television before realizing that nothing interesting was on nor had the guide changed since the last ten minutes she checked. Blowing out frustration, she placed the remote on the coffee table and stood to her feet.

She was bored. Demi didn’t know what bored was prior to dancing all day. Demi never had time for television and didn’t know what it meant to have a lot on her mind because her thoughts had always been consumed with dance routines, melodies, practice, and the gym. She fumbled with the stereo system in the far corner of Papa’s living room and connected her phone to the speakers via Bluetooth.

Demi played one of her favorite instrumentals and closed her eyes; her arms rose then fell. She closed her eyes and tilted her neck, slowly raising on her toes and moving into the second position.

Demi took a deep breath before coming off the ground and twirling around. Before she knew it, she heard someone clapping when she turned around and came down to her feet and snapped out of la-la land.

She remembered where she was and it was not on stage in front of five hundred people, but she was downtown in a loft that wasn’t even in her boyfriend’s name.

She stared at Papa wondering if he really understood who she was and what she represented. Demi wanted to become a role model, but were her actions worth following? She was nineteen-years-old and her days were now filled with eating junk food and watching television as she awaited her boyfriend’s return from the streets.

Every now and then Demi would find herself at an art museum or on the back row of a stage play, but she couldn’t bring herself to go see a ballet. It brought back to many memories, one of them being that it was she and her mother’s favorite thing to do together.

Demi used to live for the times when Dorane would walk into the theatre and immediately dancers would stop and stare, marveling at the fact that Dorane came to see them dance.

Demi asked Papa, “How did I do?” Although he knew nothing about dance, she still wanted to know what he thought.

“You the best damn dancer I know,” he told her.

Demi blushed at her boyfriend’s compliment. She wanted so bad to hate him, but she couldn’t.

***

Papa was doing everything right, even coming home early so they could have dinner together. He allowed her to be angry when she wanted to and happy when she felt like it as well.

All he wanted was Demi Westbrook. He didn’t care what mood she was in as long as her ass was there when he made it in, and Papa was satisfied.

“I miss it so much,” she admitted as her and Papa chilled in the kitchen, while he made a sandwich.

“It’s coming back to you before you know it, trust me babe,” he told her.

“What do you wanna be when you grow up?” Demi asked.

Papa looked at her with a dumb look on his face. “I didn’t have the childhood you had, I keep telling you that,” Papa said.

“That doesn’t matter. You’re telling me you never said “I wanna be a firefighter or a policeman” or something like that when you grew up?” Demi questioned. She desperately needed to know that the life he lived wasn’t the life he wanted to live forever.

“I fucking hate the police, man it’s so many of my homies locked away,” Papa told her.

Demi rolled her eyes. She never understood how he blamed the police for doing their job, but she wouldn’t say that. “Okay, so maybe not a police officer, but what about owning your own business?” she asked him.

Papa took a gulp of his Sprite and then let out a big burp, not bothering to say excuse me, but when did he ever. “Well, me and Unc been talking about starting a trucking company, but man I don’t know,” he said, with doubt in his voice.

Demi clapped. “Oh my God, what do you need me to do?” She grabbed the iPad that was at the end of the bar and unlocked it.

“So, we need to buy some trucks. Do you already have your CDL?” she asked.

Papa told her, “Nah, and I don’t want that shit.”

“Why don’t you want your CDL? Let me see if they offer online courses and I can just take the class for you,” she told him.

“You’re happier about this than me,” Papa said.

“Because babe, I know you love your job, but we need a backup plan.”

“We?”

Demi smiled. “Yes, US. I gotta get a backup plan too….” she said, her voice trailing. Dance had always been her life, but she couldn’t let that be all she had to offer the world. It was her first time admitting that she had nothing else going on besides dance.

“Nah, dance is your plan, your only plan,” Papa told her.

“This year is going by so slow, I check the calendar every day,” Demi said.

“And is your mom still refusing to call them?” Papa asked.

Demi nodded her head. She never told Papa that she never even asked her mom to call the school. She knew Dorane would tell her “hell no”, so she didn’t waste her time or energy.

Whenever Demi spoke to her mama she would be in funk for days, so she decided to keep her space. She wasn’t fucking with her mama right now, but she never stopped praying for their relationship.

“I love you,” Demi told Papa.

Papa blushed. He hated when he did that sucker shit, but with Demi he couldn’t help it. She was always sending him random romantic messages throughout the day.

“I love you more, Demi,” Papa told her, and burped again.

“Papa!” Demi shouted his name. He laughed because he knew that shit got on her nerves.

“Excuse me baby, damn,” he told her.

Demi shook her head. “Okay, so about this truck company, what are we going to name it?”

Papa didn’t know why he told Demi knowing how excited she would get about the simplest things. But it seemed as if she was eager to help, so between Demi and Unc the trucking company would be up and running in no time and all Papa would have to do was supply the funds which was cool with him.

***

“So, did you know they wanted me to move?” Mary Jane asked Papa, as soon as he walked through her home and made himself comfortable on the couch. Papa stretched his long legs. Mary Jane didn’t allow shoes in her home, so Papa was staring at his mix-matched socks when Mary Jane asked him the question.

He looked at her. “They asked you that? When?”

Mary Jane asked a question of her own. “So you knew?”

“I did, and when they suggested it I told them hell no,” Papa told her.

Mary Jane knew he wasn’t lying so she removed her strap from the pants she wore and sat it on the book shelf near her front door.

“You was gone shoot me?” Papa asked.

“If you lied, then yeah,” she told him, and went into the kitchen.

Papa followed Mary Jane into the kitchen. “What’s up with you?” he asked.

Mary Jane took off the turban she wore on her head and said, “It’s hot in here, are you hot?”

Papa knew she was tripping and was probably having a bad day so he told her, “I’ll swing back through later.”

Mary Jane spoke up. “Let’s have some tea.”

Papa eyed her suspiciously. “You good?”

Mary Jane had tears in her eyes; he didn’t notice it before. “I can’t leave my house. I’m not leaving my house,” she told Papa.

He had been wanting to ask her for quite some time what really fucking happened in this house because he never seen Mary Jane out in public. She always had food, but he never heard her say she had to run to the store or nothing like that.

When Mary Jane visited Papa at the hospital he was so surprised because she never went anywhere.

Papa nodded his head. “I’ll let them know, MJ.”

“Promise me?” she begged.

Papa didn’t want to do that, because he wasn’t fucking with them and they weren’t fucking with him, so instead of using secure words such as promise, he told her, “I got you.”

Mary Jane smiled weakly. “I made soup, want some?” she offered.

Papa nodded his head, but instead of sitting in the dining room, he watched her ass pull the Tupperware out of the refrigerator and pour him some into a bowl.

“You killed someone before?” Papa asked her.

“Have you?” Mary Jane flipped the question around.

Papa smiled. “Plead the fifth,” he told her.

“Who called you?” Papa asked Mary Jane.

“They came here,” she told him.

Papa put his spoon down. “They came here?”

“See, I don’t be tripping on shit until you give me that look. Do you not fuck with them or you do?” Mary Jane asked.

Papa told her quickly, “Them my niggas, I’m just surprised they came out here. They not like me.”

Mary Jane smirked. “And what does that mean?”

“I fuck around in the hood, they wear suits and shit,” Papa told her.

“Well none of them had suits on last night.”

“Who all came?” Papa asked.

“Malachi and Sean,” Mary Jane told Papa.

Without her telling him, he knew Nasir didn’t come.

“What did you tell them?” Papa questioned.

“Shouldn’t you already know?” Mary Jane said.

“Stop playing mind games with me, I don’t like that shit,” Papa snapped.

Mary Jane had a million incense being burned and candles glowing, on top of her playing some kind of Aphrodisiac music. He couldn’t concentrate.

“I gotta go,” Papa told her, standing up.

“See you next time,” she said, nonchalantly.

Papa didn’t bother with a goodbye. He left the gun clip on the dining room table and made sure she caught his eyes when he did it. He never wanted Mary Jane to think it was okay for her to shoot at him if she thought he was lying. Shit like that didn’t fly with him.

He walked down the steps of her brownstone and got in his car. Papa was ready for it to warm back up; he missed riding his bike. When he pulled off he noticed a car parked across the street and he called Sasha’s phone.

“What you doing over here?” he asked.

Sasha told him, “I’m here on orders.”

“Orders from whom?” Papa questioned.

“Not you,” Sasha told him, and hung the phone up.

Papa didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but he had been laying low and keeping his mouth shut for too long. Moving Mary Jane was one thing, but when he felt like
he
was the one being followed, it was a problem.

Papa’s loyalty had never been questioned. Even as a youngin and he was robbing niggas left and right and the hood was talking about it. Papa could go anywhere and his face card checked out. He had always been a thorough nigga, so the question on his mind now was…who was Sasha following, him or Mary Jane?