Put A Ring On It (23 page)

If it weren’t for the fact that she needed to stay on his good side, Vangie would have snatched away from Shawn and ordered him to buy a blow-up doll for his nasty needs. What the hell did he think she was—a human hole for his cum deposits?
Motherfucker thinks he can come home and smash every time his dick gets hard
.

Yearning to conclude the vulgar interaction, Vangie began faking enjoyment. Winding her hips and whispering his name as she clenched her pussy muscles tightly around his girth.

Shawn shuddered as he exploded.

Vangie rolled her eyes.
Now I have to take another damn shower. Shit!

1995

H
arlow and Jody had been hiding out in South Philly for the past two weeks, living in a dump with an old man named Mr. Calvin. Mr.Calvin had kidney problems, diabetes, and only one leg. He called Jody his lil’ chippy. Harlow didn’t know what a chippy was, but from the look in his happy look in his eyes and the way he tried to pull Jody onto his lap even though he was sitting in a wheelchair, Harlow could tell that Mr. Calvin thought Jody was his girlfriend. But Harlow knew better. Jody was only using the sickly old man in exchange for drugs and a roof over their heads.

Harlow’s dreary lifestyle consisted of eating, sleeping, watching TV all day, and peeking out of windows every time the doorbell rang, afraid that Skeeter had found her.

Mr. Calvin was on dialysis and was away from the house for seven to eight hours daily. Though the old man lived in a dump, he seemed to have plenty of money. He allowed Harlow to order anything she wanted from the neighborhood deli: cheesesteak, turkey hoagie, wing dings, pizza. The sky was the limit. And she could have any kind of dessert that the deli carried: cherry cheesecake, lemon meringue pie, Chocolate Tastykakes. He gave Jody so much money, she was smoking crack around the clock.

The way Jody explained it, she had to smoke more than usual to take her mind off the fire.

Harlow was miserable at Mr. Calvin’s house. She missed Smoke,
but thinking about Smoke was almost as painful as thinking about her baby. Harlow wore a sad expression that seemed permanently etched on her face. So many bad things had happened to her, she doubted if she’d ever have a reason to smile. Then she thought about school, and that gave her hope.

“I want to go back to my school,” she said to her mother.

“It’s too risky,” her mother said.

“I’ll be careful.”

“Stop pestering me. I’ll put you back in school after I find us our own place. Somewhere outside of Philly.”

“When is that gonna be?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

“You’re getting on my damn nerves, Harlow.” Jody stuck a cigarette in her mouth.

“You’re getting on my damn nerves, too,” Harlow retorted, twisting neck.

“You’re not grown. You better watch your smart-ass mouth,” Jody said, puffing hard on the cigarette.

Lips pursed, Harlow held up her middle finger.

Jody lurched toward her, one scrawny fist balled up. “I’ma pop you upside your head.”

Harlow gave her mother a belligerent look. “I dare you. Touch me and I’ma knock you on your ass.” Harlow’s resentment toward her mother had escalated to new heights. Jody was gaunt and starting to look slightly stooped. Harlow was sure she could whip her mother’s ass if she had to.

“If you ever raise your hand to me, I’ma call the cops and let them put you away.” Seeing the quick glimpse of fear that lit her daughter’s eyes, Jody went on in a taunting manner. “How many asses do you think you can whip inside a detention center? I
guarantee that you won’t be able to do shit with those big, manly girls. You ain’t got nothing for those hardcore lil’ bitches up in them kiddy jails.”

Harlow heaved a sigh and then whined, “All I do is sit around in this raggedy house. I’m bored, Jody. And I miss going to school. I finally had some friends…and the teachers were really nice, too.”

“I can’t send you back to that school. So drop it!”

“Why not?”

“People in our ’hood knew that you were taking the bus to Upper Darby. Don’t you think Skeeter has that info by now?”

Scared and defeated, Harlow dropped her head.

“If he finds out where you are, he’ll storm your classroom and march you out at gunpoint?”

“You’re scaring me, Jody!” Harlow squealed.

“Well, it’s the truth. Don’t underestimate Skeeter. If he wants to get you, there won’t be anything the teacher, the principal, or nobody else can do about it.”

After leaving that terrifying image in Harlow’s mind, Jody settled herself on the living room couch where she openly lit and puffed on her crack pipe. She used to hole up in her bedroom or stay locked up in the bathroom for hours. But not anymore. Ever since the fire, Jody acted like she didn’t care who saw her sparking up her pipe.

Disgusted with her life, Harlow trudged to the kitchen. She was thinking about how much she despised her mother as she put a half-eaten cheesesteak in the microwave. While it heated, she decided that when Mr. Calvin came home from dialysis, she’d ask him to order her a PlayStation from one of those shopping channels he loved to watch. Or maybe she’d ask him to buy her a computer. Playing around online would allow for some sort of communication with the outside world.

She was starting to feel a little bit better about her predicament, and then she heard Jody making strange, gurgling sounds.

A mixture of fear and guilt sent Harlow running from the kitchen to the living room. Jody sat crookedly with her head pressed into the back of the rumpled couch. Froth seeped from the corners of her mouth. Eyes wild with disbelief, Jody grabbed at her own neck with both hands. It looked to Harlow like her mother was trying to strangle herself.

“What’s wrong, Jody!” Harlow shouted. She pulled at her mother’s fingers, trying to peel them away from her neck, hoping to give her mother some relief, a chance to catch her breath. Face contorted in a horrific grimace, Jody kept struggling, her hands gripping her neck.

“Be still, Jody. Move your hands.” Frantic, Harlow fought to pry her mother’s strangling hands away. She left scratch marks on her mother’s wrists and arms during the skirmish.

The look of shock suddenly left her mother’s bulging eyes, leaving them blank and unfocused.

Giving up in her struggle against death, Jody’s hands fell away from her throat and hung limp at her sides. A gush of bubbly saliva that looked like soap suds spilled down her chin. Jody released a strangled gasp and slumped to the side.

“Oh, God!” Harlow screamed. She had one eye on her mother and the other eye of the blackened pipe on the floor. She grabbed her mother by her frail shoulders and shook her. She pounded on her back. “Take a deep breath, Jody. Try to breathe.” She had to call an ambulance and get her mother some help. She looked around helplessly and chewed on her bottom lip. The telephone was upstairs in Mr. Calvin’s room. Jody was dying, and she was scared to leave her side.

So she screamed. “Somebody, help me! My mother needs help!”
What should I do?
On TV, people saved lives by blowing air into the dying person’s mouth. Intending to revive her, she puckered her lips over Jody’s saliva-smeared mouth and blew her breath into her mother’s mouth.

“Come on, Jody, breathe,” she frantically urged her mother.

Jody’s eyes rolled into the back of her head. Convulsing, her mouth gaped open, a torrent of the sudsy substance flooded out.

“I’m sorry about what I said. Jody, please don’t die. I wouldn’t ever hit you. I swear. I was talking trash.” It occurred to Harlow to call Ronica and ask her how to do CPR, but then she remembered that Ronica had burned up in the fire.

“I don’t know what to do!” Harlow wailed. “Help me!”

Jody released a long sigh. That disconcerting expulsion of air was the last sound that Jody ever made.

H
arlow rose early. She pulled back the drapes in her hotel room and gazed at the snow-covered streets. People with shoulders hunched from the cold hurried along the Parkway. Everyone seemed to be in such a great rush to get somewhere. It was so different from St. Croix where people went about their day at a leisurely pace.

She yearned for Drake. She’d spent Christmas Day alone and sequestered in her suite, reminiscing about her sad life and praying that she and Drake could move forward together.

He called to wish her a merry Christmas, and apologized for not being with her. She lied, telling him that she was spending the holiday with Vangie’s family. Relieved that she wouldn’t be alone, Drake rushed off the phone. Why didn’t he have time to talk? Surely, he and Talib weren’t bogged down in business on Christmas Day.

All Drake had to do was let Talib know that one of his men was dealing with blood diamonds. He had the evidence to prove it. So why was Drake lingering on the island?

Drake knew more than he was admitting, and Harlow had an ominous feeling that their relationship was hopelessly broken. Her suspicious thoughts went from Drake being with another woman to him being deeply involved in diamond smuggling.

Cabin fever was getting to her, so she sent a text to Vangie, letting her know she was in town. She invited Vangie and Nivea to join her for dinner.

Then she had a sudden thought. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the hotel phone and called for a car. There was something she needed to do. Something she’d been avoiding for a very long time.

Alone in the snow-covered cemetery, Harlow brushed a gloved hand against the letters that were etched in the granite grave marker. Her mother’s remains had been in an unmarked plot for sixteen years, and Harlow felt a great sense of relief now that she’d finally honored Jody’s memory. She’d bought the marker soon after she’d started enjoying Drake’s wealth, but she’d never visited the grave—had never had the emotional strength, until today.

The only thing Harlow had ever told Drake or her friends about her was that she’d died young. Without any known relatives, Harlow had been sent to foster care.

With that sad and vague description of her childhood, friends didn’t pry. They could surmise that her life hadn’t been easy. She’d shared only snippets of her life with her best friend, Vangie. Mostly, she shared memories of her living in a group home. She could never tell Vangie or anyone else the complete truth—that she’d survived atrocities that no child should ever suffer.

If purging was necessary to heal, then Harlow would be forever wounded. Her heart twisted at the thought of having to bear her soul. She couldn’t do it. One of the worst memories was losing her baby—that poor little infant that never had a chance.

“Merry Christmas, Jody,” she whispered, her throat tightening as she tried to erase the memories of so many Christmases without a tree, toys, or even a Christmas dinner. Most Christmases, Harlow was home alone or hustling to pay for Jody’s drugs.

Unable to stop the flow of tears, she raised gloved hands to her face and cried. Deep sobs from her soul.

When the tears finally stopped, she stood. She pulled off a glove and touched the top of the cold marker. “I forgive you, Jody,” she whispered. “If you made it to heaven, and I really hope you did, please kiss my baby for me.” Harlow gasped in anguish, tears rolling down her face. “I love my baby. Tell her that she’s always in my heart. I’ll never stop loving her.”

Vangie called Nivea. “Harlow’s in town. She’s staying at the Four Seasons, and she invited us to dinner tonight.”

Nivea sighed. “I don’t go running when Miss Priss snaps her fingers. I have a date tonight.”

“You met someone new?”

“Sure did. And he’s hot.”

“I’m happy for you. What’s his name, and where’d you meet him?”

“Uh, I’d rather not divulge any information about my man.”

“Why not?”

“I think it’s best to keep my business to myself.”

“Nivea! You’re talking to me. You can trust me.”

“Don’t take it personally, Vangie.”

“Okay, whatever works for you. So, are you saying that you won’t be joining Harlow and me?”

Nivea let out a long groan. “What time? Maybe I can rearrange my schedule.”

“Well, I told her that I had to pick up Yuri, but then Shawn agreed to get him—”

“Get to the point, Vangie. Do I really need to hear every aspect of your domestic life? What time should I meet you and Harlow?”

“Are you okay, Nivea? You’re sounding rather testy.”

“I’m great. But I’m losing my tolerance for bullshit.”

“Bullshit! I was merely trying to tell you that with Shawn helping out, I could go to the hotel straight from work.”

“You’re trying to rub your new relationship in my face. I would expect a little more sensitivity from a true friend.”

“I wasn’t rubbing anything in your face, but I’m not going to argue with you. Believe what you want. If you want to meet us for dinner, we’ll see you at six-thirty in the hotel’s dining room.”

“I hate hotel food,” Nivea said irritably.

It was Vangie’s turn to sigh.