At Last (2 page)

“
You been
taking your meds baby?” I asked already knowing the answer. He was quiet for a moment, and then he finally answered me, “I don’t need them.”

“Baby, you gotta take them so you don’t feel like this.”

He put his head in his hands, “Keish just give me another chance.  I promise I’ma get better for us.  So we can be a family again”

His statement made me feel something in my gut.  Not something bad, but just a feeling.  I wanted the same thing deep down.  I did. I wanted Taylor to have two parents who loved her and loved one another, but I had been down this road with Justin too many times before.  I could only say one thing, “I know baby.  I know.”

I sat out there in the truck with him a little longer as he continued to wipe tears from his face.

“You and Taylor is all I got.”  He said looking out the window. I mean, I understood he was sick, but damn.  He was never really on the sane side to begin with, but these episodes were getting played out.

“And you’ll always have us, but you gotta stay on your meds so you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else.
Alright?
  Go home and lay down.”

“What time you leaving the hair show tonight?”

“I don’t know.”

“I want you and Taylor to come over.”

I pondered. I didn’t know if it was a good idea, but then again he was her father.

“We’ll see.  It’s going to be late.  I don’t want to have her out that time of night.”

“Please, boo?” He looked at me with those hazel brown eyes and I couldn’t say no.  Even though he looked like a vagrant, I still couldn’t say no.

“Okay Justin, but I gotta go back inside.  I’ll call you later.”  I kissed him on the cheek and got out of the
truck.  I watched as he pulled off still trying to grasp what had just happened.

Justin’s mother was bipolar.  She suffered a nervous breakdown when he was thirteen, when Justin’s father left the family.  She was placed in a psychiatric hospital by the state and Justin and his older brother Rico were left to fend for themselves.

They didn’t have any other family since their mother was from Costa Rica.  Their father was from California and didn’t have any known relatives, so Rico and Justin just had each other.

Last year Rico was killed.  He and a few of his boys were out at an afterhours spot when it was robbed.  Rico was shot in the process. Justin couldn’t deal with it. It was the biggest reason we weren’t together anymore.  He started putting his hands on me.

First it was just arguments.  Then it was shoving matches.  Eventually, it escalated to drag out brawls which led to him kicking my ass real good one time.  He was arrested and ended up doing six months in the Wayne County jail.

He had to go through anger management and domestic abuse counseling. The judge went easy on him because she felt sorry for him.   I remember her saying, “Mr. Smith, too often young black men are thrown into the prison system without so much as an afterthought.  You need help.  And whether or not you feel you do, you are going to get some.   In addition to your prison sentence, you’re required to undergo psychiatric testing. Hopefully it will do you some good and assist you in turning your life around.”

Justin did the testing; it was discovered that he too, like his mother, suffered from bipolar disorder. As a
requirement of his sentencing, he had to write a letter to his victim asking for forgiveness.  And he did.

He wrote me this long ass letter saying how he loved me and that he was sorry that he ever hit me. He promised he’d never do it again.  He continued about how he wanted us to be a family when he got out.

He’d been out for almost three months now. 
Every day since he pursued me.
  It’d been hard turning him down.  I always was a sucker for him. Even though so much had happened between us during these past three years I still saw him as the shy guy I fell in love with at fifteen.

I sighed as I walked back into the shop.  As usual all eyes were on me.

“Everything cool?”
  Juan asked me sympathetically.

“Yeah, cool as a muthafucking fan.”

Chapter Two

The hair show was being held at The Fine Arts Theatre in downtown Detroit.  There was a stage and a platform set-up. Once the show was over the auditorium was set up like a club with booths and tables filled with Dom Perignon, Cristal and Moët.  It was quite a sight. Loud music, drinks, good food, and the baddest hairstyles this side of the Mississippi.

I wore a crotchet fuchsia cat suit and a pair of matching satin sandals.  It left little to the imagination and I was killing it. My best-friend Melissa made it for me.  She was all that. We had been best friends since the fourth-grade.  She wasn’t able to make it because of work.

I wore my hair in soft spiral curls.  All my models wore pink and black and the audience loved it.  I had the best looking girls and the best looking styles.

After the show I sat in the VIP section sipping on Dom Perignon with my sister Yvette. She wore a black halter dress with a plunging neckline.  The dress stopped about mid-thigh and pair of silver Jimmy Choo sandals.

To see me and my sister you would never think we were related.  Yvette had fine, auburn short curly hair.  My hair was thick, nearly jet black and way past my shoulders. She had freckles, while I had moles.  My eyes are slanted and dark brown.  Yvette’s are round and light brown.  My lips are full, her lips are thin.

I was short, only 5-foot-3.  Yvette on the other hand was tall, around 5-foot-9.  She’s was the color of ripe bananas.  I was milk chocolate.  Yvette was small on the top- a B-cup on a good day as she would say, so she could wear little skimpy tops without a bra.  If I did that I would be arrested.

Yvette was bigger on the bottom though.  She had a big round onion booty, big thick thighs and beautiful long legs that drove men crazy. I had back too, but I was mostly hips.

We looked like each parent.  She was the spitting image of my mother, Karolyn, except for the height, and instead of having fine auburn hair; hers was thick just like mine. I looked like my father Kenneth.

My Daddy was so handsome. He was tall at least six feet; his complexion was rich, smooth and the color of hot chocolate.  His eyes were warm chestnut brown.  He always wore a neatly trimmed mustache and he had a beautiful smile that lit up the room. He died when I was thirteen. He worked at the Chrysler plant on the Eastside.  The doctors said he developed some kind of
cancer from working there.  I took his death really hard.  We were mad close. I was his baby.  He always said that I looked just like his younger sister, Katrina. He always catered to me.  He spoiled me from the day I was born-anything I wanted, I got. 

Yvette received the same treatment. While my father didn’t play favorites, Yvette was clearly my mother’s favorite child.  I’d always known it but never addressed it.   It hurt me.  Cause I’m always looking for some man to spoil me.  Only problem is, once they spoil me, they hurt me.

“I know you happy all this is over.”  Yvette said to me as she sipped on her Cristal.

“Ecstatic.  But it ended up turning out nice though.”

“It did,” she said nodding her head.  “All the hard work paid off.”

“I was so damn nervous.”  I said smiling.

“Girl
please
.  You had it.  Your girls looked so nice.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m just relieved it’s over, now I can get some rest.”

“I don’t know how you do it.  All them complaining ass bitches, day in and day out,” Yvette said still sipping.

“Whatever, you work at the bank.  I don’t know how you do it.  Shit, you deal with people’s money so I know they do the fool.”  I replied with a smirk. Yvette was an Assistant Manager at First National Bank downtown.

“I guess.  But when people start to show they ass, I show them the door!”

We fell out laughing.

“I’m serious.  I be done beat some bitch ass if she asked me to make her look like Beyoncé’ when she came in looking like Jay-Z.  Y’all work muthafucking wonders.”  She said as she poured herself another glass of champagne.

“Alright, Vette.
Cool it.  How many glasses have you had already?  What’s that? Four?”  I asked.

She gave me the evil eye.  I knew it was coming. 
Straight into big sister mode.
It never ceased to amaze me.  She never let me forget that she was the big sister, by all of five years. “Girl please, I been drinking longer than you been alive.  I’m going to enjoy myself tonight.”

Yvette had always been a drinker, but when Rico was killed she started to drink even more.  They had been off and on for almost ten years, but had reconciled and were planning to get married before Rico’s murder.

Just like that her world came to a halt just as Justin’s did.  I tried to watch over her as much as I could but it was hard.  She was the big sister and never for a minute let me forget it.

“Okay.”  Was all I could muster up and say?  Suddenly, I felt my phone vibrate. I looked down and read the text message.

Can I make U cum 2nite?

From: Durran

10:15p.m. 4/21/05

He was so full of himself.  I kept the text to myself though.  I was in no mood for yay or nay sayers.  I put my phone back in my purse discreetly, but I guess disgust was written all over my face.

“Who is that?”  Yvette questioned.

I didn’t even turn to look her in the eyes, “Durran.”

“Is he coming?
What’s
up wit y’all?”

“Nothing.”
  I said dryly while running my fingers through my hair.

“Whatever
bitch.
” She dismissed before laughing.

I rolled my eyes.  “Seriously, he just the same old Durran, still into playing them games.”

“Whatever.  You right there playing with his ass,” Yvette replied continuing to laugh.

“I’ma
go
to the restroom,” I said as I got up.

Moving through the thick crowd, I felt someone grab my waist.

“Do you have a problem!?” I asked turning around and ripping from their grasp.

“Yup, I asked someone a question and I never got a response,” It was Durran, looking good and smelling just as scrumptious.  His scent was intoxicating. Durran had the smoothest skin I’d ever seen.   I’d never met a man with skin as smooth as his.  It’s what attracted me to him. It was like creamy milk chocolate.  His hair was black and freshly cut with a taper.

He looked perfect from head to toe. He was wearing a pair of perfectly creased tan linen slacks and his crease met in the middle of brown Gucci loafers and a matching short sleeve buttoned up shirt.

I could see his wifebeater underneath his shirt gripping his defined chest while his pretty brown arms hugged the sleeves. His body was magnificent.  He was lean without an ounce of fat on his beautiful body. I could feel myself overheating as I gazed at him.  I became trapped in his beautiful dark eyes.

As he smiled at me, showing off his white teeth with a slight gap in the center, my heart skipped a beat.  His dimple stabbed me right in the heart. Even his nose was perfect; as was the beauty mark on his upper right cheek. Regardless of how I felt on the inside, I had to act like Durran’s presence didn’t faze me. Looking up at his
six
foot frame, I had to hide my attraction to him.

“What I don’t get a hug?”  He asked slyly.

I gave him a tired, half-ass hug trying not to blow my cover.

“That’s it?”  He asked with same smug ass smile as I pulled away from him. He had a lot of nerve. He hadn’t talked   to me for over two weeks because he saw Justin’s truck in my driveway. I don’t know what he expected.  Justin was my daughter’s father, and he had the right to see his child.  Durran always had to have things his way.

That was Durran. It’d been like that from the moment I met him.  It was always a power struggle.  He never wanted to let me go.  He’d always tell me, “If I can’t have you, no one will.”  Then there was his favorite, “Mama, you gone always be mine.  Them other dudes just passing time.”

I lost my virginity to Durran when I was seventeen. He took me to my prom and got me pregnant too. I hooked up with him while Justin did his first stint in jail for armed robbery.

While Justin was in jail, we wrote every day.  Of course I didn’t have a car, so I couldn’t visit him.  And he damn sure couldn’t call my house collect.  My mother wasn’t having that shit.  Our only way to communicate was through letters.