I RODE WITH MY father over to my grandmother’s house to drop Cam’Ron off. Granny Dot still lived in a huge 3-bedroom home where my mom mostly grew up. My mom’s brother Leonard still lived with granny but you would never know because he was always gone. When he did come home, he was always stinking drunk and granny would have to use her walking cane to beat the devil out of him. At least that’s what she tells me.
Since it was two flights of stairs to my grandmother’s room, my mom and dad had turned the dining room into a bedroom for granny. She liked being on one floor and not having to climb all those stairs to go to bed in such a dark house. My mom had tried many times to get granny to downsize and move into a smaller apartment but granny wasn’t ready to let her house of memories go just yet. She said her beloved past away in this house and she was going to do the same.
Being respectful, I knock on my grandmother’s door. “It opens!” Granny yells from her favorite chair in the living room.
“Hey Granny!” I walk over to hug her and my dad follows suit and did the same. Cam gives granny a quick kiss on the cheek and tells her he’s about to go over his friend’s house next door.
“Don’t you stay too long now ‘cause you know I can’t come lookin’ for you.” He promises her he won’t but dad and I both know Cam never lives up to his promises. Granny looks at dad and says, “You come to carry me to my ‘pointment?”
My dad had no idea granny had a doctor’s appointment. “Ah, yeah I can mom, what time you supposed to be there?” He said scratching his head.
For some reason my name wouldn’t come from granny’s mouth. Not that she had forgotten who I was. “Uh… Uh… baby?” Granny said referring to me. “Hand me my, ah… pocketbook.” I did as I was told. She reached inside and pulled out a business card with her appointment written in pen.
Granny placed her glasses on her face and bent her head forward to look out of the top of them. “Gosh darnit! I can’t read this.” I wanted to say… well granny if maybe if you tried looking through the glasses instead of out of the top of them. But I didn’t. “What this here say?” Granny handed the card to me.
“It says, 2:30, Granny.”
“Huh? 2:30?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Uh huh. Yes. Well, what time is it now?”
My dad took a look at the card and noticed that the appointment was dated for last week. “Mama, this appointment was for last week. You’re going to have to make another one. You’re not going to be able to go today.”
“Ah shucks. Well carry that card to Joi and tell her to make me a ‘pointment, okay? I told Leonard bout my ‘poinment but he don’t never be here. I needs to get my medicine.”
“I know mama, I’ll have Joi make the next appointment as soon as possible and if Joi can’t take you, I will.”
“Okay, thank you son.” Granny always thought my dad was a good man. She never understood why he and my mom had gotten a divorce. I heard she tried so hard to talk my mom out of it but once my mom gets her mind made up, it’s no stopping her.
I thought it was a good time to ask my grandmother for a laptop. “Hey Granny?”
She was writing in her huge black diary as she often did. “Chile, I keep telling you that hay is for horses.”
I laughed. “I’m sorry Granny.” I went to sit on the floor next to her swollen feet. “Do you think you can get me a laptop?”
“Oh Chile, I don’t know. You ‘bout too big to be sittin’ on top of ‘ole granny’s lap.”
“No Granny. It’s a computer.”
“A ‘puter? O no, I don’t know nothing ‘bout no ‘puters Chile. You ask your mother?”
“I did but she said no.”
“Well, if she said no, I’m sure it was for a reason.” My grandmother and my father both shared a look at each other and smiled. I didn’t think anything was funny at all.
“Daddy?”
“Nooo Amber. You know your mama is the Queen Bee. What she says goes. Besides, you know I don’t have no money like that right now.” He went on eating granny’s famous pound cake.
“Well what about a cell phone?” I begged.
“What do you need with a cell phone Amber?”
I give up, grab my coat, and ran outside onto my grandmother’s porch. It was a little chilly but not freezing, thank God. I sit on the steps and wanted to cry like a baby because no one understood me or what I was going through. I was tired of hearing about how everyone is broke and how I can’t have this or that. It made me angry that everyone else in the world seemed to have something and get to enjoy life except me. It just wasn’t fair!
♥♥♥
As if to make matters worse, I’m at my dad’s house and I finally meet his “friend.” That’s what he calls her. Already I’m not sure if I like her or not. He tells me that he just got called into work. So much for daughter daddy time.
“Why can’t I just go stay with granny?”
“Well for one, Amber, you’re already here.”
“I can go home and stay by myself, daddy.”
“No, I don’t want to hear your mom’s mouth. If it were up to me, I’d say you were old enough to watch yourself. But for now, just stay here with Melissa.
“Fine.” I went into the living room and watched T.V. I flicked through over 300 channels and still haven’t found anything to watch. It’s so boring here. I should have stayed at my grandmother’s while I still had the chance.
♥♥♥
I’m sitting in my dad’s basement talking to his female “Friend.” I guess she’s not as bad as I thought. She looks white, but she acts black. I laugh inside every time she speaks. I close my eyes when she talks and could swear up and down she was darker than I was. I guess she’s cute. She has a nice shape for a white girl. (No lesbo) I wonder how old she is but I’m scared to ask because I think that would be rude, but I do it anyway.
“How old is you?” She was about to take a sip of her drink and then stopped before it touched her thin lips.
“I’m twenty-five.” She stares at me for a reaction. It takes me a minute to do the math. I have to use my fingers a little bit and hope she doesn’t notice.
“OMG! You’re like, twelve years younger than my dad?”
“Yeah, I know right.” She takes another sip of her drink and asks me if I mind if she lit a cigarette. I don’t care what she does. I think about that night Symphony let me smoke hers and how I choked to death. I’m wiggling my fingers again against my jeans.
“Hold up! You’re only ten years older than me!”
“Yep…”
Hmmm… I’m thinking my mom might be salty if she knew daddy had a younger woman, even though I know she’s seeing Keith. “How long have you been smoking?”
“Geesh… I’m almost embarrassed to say. Russell might think I’m a bad influence on his baby girl.”
“Please! I’m hardly a baby. I’m fifteen.”
“I know and I was only two years younger than you when I first started smoking.”
Dangit! What is she, a dang math teacher? Why can’t she just say a dang number? I tap my fingers again against my leg. I ain’t that dumb, but I had to check to make sure I was right.
“Can you teach me?”
“Girl, you must want your daddy to kill me!”
“He ain’t gotta know.”
“What the hell! But keep it between us okay?”
She lights another cigarette, hands it to me, and shows me what to do. I follow her instructions to the ‘T’ and I don’t choke. I’m blowing rings in the air and having it flow from my mouth straight into my nose. Ok, I admit that burned and I choked a little. I don’t like doing it that way but the rings are cool. She was even letting me drink some of daddy’s liquor. I’ma have to hang out more often with her. I was feeling empowered like I could conquer anything.
“So, how come you not allowed to go to Winter Formal?” I told her the whole story of me sneaking out and what all went down. “Awww… that messed up. She could have at least let y
ou go to your first Winter Formal.”
“Oh, I know… and I had my dress and everything.” I pulled the dress out of my bag and showed her. Don’t ask why I still had the dress in there. I haven’t found a good hiding place for it yet. Plus, I like taking it out every now and then and looking at it.
“Wow, this is hot!” She hands it back to me. “Here… go try it on.” She ain’t have to ask me twice. I ran to the bathroom and put the dress on. By the time I opened the door to come out Melissa was standing there with three pairs of heels, jewelry, and wigs. We were having a ball playing dress up. She put my make-up on better than Symphony. I put on one of her long black wigs with chinky china bangs. At first, I was like, how I’m gone do that when you got white girl hair. But she was right, this looked like black girl weave or something. Not only did I look like a model, I felt like one.
My ugly cheap Obama phone rang. I know it had to be my mom, probably sensing I was having fun, and she’s trying to put an end to it. I almost didn’t answer it but I know she would be over here in a flash if I didn’t.
“Hello.” I said with much attitude.
“Dang baby… if it’s all like that you want to hit me back?” OMG! I know this ain’t who I think it is.
“Who dis?” I ain’t goin’ lie y’all, I’m tipsy as heck right now.
“Quit trippin’ girl, you know this Q.”
“Oh, hey Q.” I tried to act like I didn’t really care that much that he was calling me. I pointed to the phone to let Melissa know that this was one of the dudes I was talking about. “You on your way to Winter Formal?”
“Nah. Hunter flaked on me so I’m solo dolo right now.”
“What… that’s crazy.” Acting like I sympathized, but I really didn’t. Her loss. She stupid.
“You want to hang out or something since it seems like everyone else going to Winter Formal?”
I put my hand over the phone and told Melissa what Q just said. She goin’ say she can’t let me out because my daddy would flip. How he goin’ know unless she tell him? I thought she was cool. My mood just went from 60-0 in like 1.5 milliseconds. Whatever that means, but it sounds smart. All this fly-ness going to waste because of stupid grownups. Ugh!
“Tell him to come over here instead.” She whispered to me.
Hecks yeah! I take it back. She cooler than an air conditioner sitting in an igloo window in Alaska. I try to play it cool. “I don’t know. I’m chilling at my dad’s crib with his girlfriend right now while he’s at work.”
“Oh, aight… another time then.”
Duh! Hello! Is he that dumb that he didn’t catch that. I felt like this moment was about to flat line and I needed to get them electrical thingies to get the mood back alive. “You can come chill with us if you want. We just sitting here turnin’ up.”
“Oh, that’s wassup! Turn down for what! Give me the address and I’ll swoop through.
When he knocked on the door, I answered it and he goin’ say, “Amber here?” I was like, “Boy quit playing.” His eyes got huge as heck. He stepped in and grabbed my hand and twirled me around like we were hand dancing.
“Dang Ma! You lookin’ real good!”
“Thanks, you lookin’ real fly too!”
I introduced him to Melissa and told him she was my step-mom. She even let us go down into the basement by ourselves to give us some privacy. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout! Finally someone who respects me and understand that I’m old enough to have company and privacy. But she goin’ say, ‘No hanky-panky’. I don’t even know what that is. I just said, okay.
But yeah, my dad got his basement set up real nice. It’s like a bar down here. Not like, I knew what one really looked like, but I seen enough on TV.
Melissa said we could have a little of the Paul Mason but not to touch the Hennessey because that was daddy’s and he’d know something was up.
I felt like I was having my own private Winter Formal. This was fine enough for me. Q asked me if it was okay if he lit up a joint he had. I told him, goin’ head. I figured smoking cigarettes, and we drinking why not?
We took a few puffs and here comes Melissa running down the steps. “I know I don’t smell what I think I smell!”
I mean dang! What she got against some bud? It was too late for Q to put it out cause Melissa was already standing right there. Quincy was sitting there stuck on stupid looking like he just was caught with his hands in the cookie jar.
“Oh, my bad. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, pass that!” Melissa took a few puffs and lit incense all around the basement.
I was beginning to feel like I was in a house unsupervised. Q had started to sing his rap song, “Son of a Battlefield” and he sounded good too! I didn’t know he could be so deep. Q turned on some music and we was jammin’ until my cell rang again. I wasn’t about to pull out that ugly thing in front of Q and have him kicking it on me. I told them I’d be right back.
Niggas must can sense when a chick is looking fly because now it was Roman calling. “Hey bae!”
“Amber?”
“Yeah, dis me!” I tried to make my voice not slur too much, but it was hard. “You at Winter Formal?”
“Nah, not yet.” I could tell he was sounding a bit down.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I don’t even know why I called.”
“Why don’t you come by my dad’s house real quick before you go to Winter Formal?”
I gave him the address, and he got there in no time. I left Q and Melissa downstairs dancing, drinking, and smoking. They won’t even know I’m gone. I’m not leaving though, just sitting in the car with Roman.
“Dang! You going to Winter Formal?” He asked me that cause I was doin’ ‘em and for the first time, I knew it.
“Not unless you taking me?” I was flirting the best I could. I looked at his tie and vest and it was a hot pink, humph… Symphony’s dress must be pink too. “We already matching.” I reached over and rubbed his waves.
He looked at me and laughed a little. “Not unless you want Symph, to kill us both.”
Great another killjoy. Why can’t people just play along and have some fun that way Quincy and I do. I know he’s with Symphony… big deal.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance like this again. I’m beautiful, my hair is long, my make-up is on point, my dress is the bomb.com, and I’m dang near wearing stilettos. No night can ever beat this. But the best part is, I’m sitting in Roman’s car. The same seat that Symphony sat in. I knew I’d get here. It was only a matter of time. Who cares he’s about to go pick her up and take her to Winter Formal. He’s here with me right now and she’s at home… alone… waiting on him. I wanted to just reach over, grab his face, and kiss his juicy lips. That’s just what I’m about to do.
“Roman?” He turns to look at me and I wiggle my index finger for him to come closer. He does and I chicken out and whisper in his ear. “I like you.” He leans in closer and whispers in my ear, “I know.”
Errrk! Scratch the record! In my mind, it’s like I did a double take. He must don’t understand so I did it. I grabbed his face with both of my hands and I put my lips on his. It wasn’t no tongue action or nothing like that. More like a long peck. Well it seemed like an eternity to me but it was actually like three seconds. Don’t laugh. Three seconds feels like forever. Put your hand over a fiery flame and see how long you last.
He broke away from me first. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t be that girl.”
He just don’t know. I want to be that girl. All this is about me becoming that girl.
“You know I’m with Symphony. Plus you was just all over my boy the last time we were out. That’s not a good look.”
Who the hell he think he talking to. I do what I want. Forget him. I try to act like his comment didn’t faze me none. “Then why are you here, Roman?”
“I’m here because I thought we were cool, a
nd you asked me too. Besides that, I was dealing with something and thought you could be someone I could talk to.” He looks toward the front door but I don’t take my eyes off him. “I thought you were different than all them other thotties out here, but you the same. Sorry to break it down to you, but you not my type. So I don’t care how much make-up you put on, how long a weave, or how short a dress… you still not my type.”
Before he stopped talking, I think I stopped hearing him speak. My world was crashing down all around me and exploded on impact. He fired insults at me as if his mouth was a .38 revolver, I was the target, and my heart was the bulls eye. We were at a shooting range. I’d have to say he was a great shot because everything that darted out of his mouth dang near killed me.
“Ro! Man, what you doing here? You trying to steal ma’ girl?” Quincy was talking to Roman from the window where I sat.
“Nah bruh, she all yours. Sorry ‘bout you and Hunter though.”
“It’s all good. It is what it is.”
It took everything I had in me to not drop no tears. Only thing I was thinking about right now was running to my dude, Paul Mason. I wanted another drink, some more weed, and a cigarette or something. That’s what I wanted. What I needed was a time machine so I could go back to before I tried to kiss him. I’m so stupid!
“Man, I just called you too.”
Roman felt his body and checked his pockets. “Aw man, I left my phone on the charger at the crib. I need to bounce man… Symph goin’ kill me.”
Roman sat there looking at me. I know he was waiting for me to get out but I felt frozen… stiff… dead.
“C’mon baby. Get out this man’s car so he can go get his wifey.”
As soon as I open Roman’s car door, Quincy pushes me out of the way and sits in the passenger’s seat. “Hold up, turn that up bruh! They announcing the winners of the contest!”
“You sure you want to torture yourself like that man?” Roman asked but Quincy ignored his question and turns up the volume himself.
‘WELL, IT’S THAT MOMENT YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR. THE WINNERS WILL RECEIVE $5000 AND A ONE SONG RECORDING DEAL WITH GIMMIE SUM DAP RECORDS!’
“Damn man…” Quincy looked at Roman. “That could have been me… well us.” He smiled a little and put his head down. I knew he was feeling bad by what all had went down.
‘AND THE WINNERS ARE… ‘SON OF A BATTLEFIELD’ BY REMY AND PATRÓN WALKER!’
“Wait, Quincy ain’t that your song?” He was just downstairs talking about that song. I see Quincy and Roman sit straight up and jerk as if they had been electrocuted. Quincy cupped his chin with his hand. His face was so wrinkled it was as if he was smelling something real bad. Roman on the other hand, his mouth was just hanging wide open but nothing was coming out.
“What the!” Q yells at the radio and then looks at Roman. “That’s my song!”
Lyrics pour from the car speakers like arrows plunging into Quincy’s body like an old school execution. I felt his pain and understood his anger. His head turns slowly towards Roman. “How they get my demo, man?”
Roman sat there in silence.
“How they get my freakin’ demo, Roman?”
“I-I don’t know, Q.” I don’t know about Q, but I had a feeling that Roman was not being truthful. He seemed too scared or something.
“Nigga! Don’t give me that! You know something! They got your exact beat and my exact lyrics!” Veins popped out of every place that Q had veins and spit flew out of his mouth with each word. “Them bastards didn’t even have the audacity to change the freakin’ song title!” Quincy pounded his fist with each word. “You played me Ro! I don’t know how or why. You had me thinking you gave a damn that day. Had me running and humiliating myself and for what, nigga?” I try to grab Q by the arm and pull him out of the car because things were getting heated real fast. I look over at Roman and all I see are tears streaming down his face but no sound.
“You always gotta outshine me! Ain’t it enough you got football, nigga?” Just that quick Quincy reaches over and start to punch Roman in the face. I’m yelling, screaming, and falling, dang near breaking my ankle trying to stop these two from killing each other. I ain’t goin’ lie, I did hesitate for a minute. Serves him right to take a few punches to the face the way he was just treating me a few minutes ago.
“Quincy, please!” I grab the back of Q’s shirt and pull. He finally stops. “Let’s just go back into the house, Q.”
“What’s going on out here?” Melissa comes running outside.
A few of Quincy’s buttons came loose and his shirt was totally untucked and wrinkled. But it didn’t matter to me because seeing him beat on Roman like that had me make-believing they were fighting over me. What? A girl can dream can’t she? Or are you being a killjoy like, Willow?
30 CHAPTER THIRTY
SYMPHONY PERKINS
When you really matter to someone, that person will always make time for you. No excuses, no lies, and no broken promises.