Christmas in the Hood (11 page)

Gigi nodded. “You gonna be okay?”

Chico grimaced. “I should be the one asking you that. But I know you’ll be all right. You’re strong. You know that, right?”

Gigi nodded.

He reached into the glove compartment, grabbed a manila envelope stuffed with something, and handed it to Gigi. “I know this can’t replace your loss, but I want you to have it.”

She glanced curiously at the package before opening it. To her surprise, it was filled with money, mostly fifties and hundreds. “I can’t take this.”

“Don’t talk crazy. That’s thirty grand. It was for Grandma’s transplant. I was on my way to give it to her. Now it’s yours. It’s the least I can do. If it wasn’t for Grandma, we’d probably still be in a drought.”

Gigi tucked the cash into the inside pocket of her Woolrich coat. “What you mean?”

“Our regular supplier got busted a few months back, and we needed a new connect. Grandma tried to hook us up with ya mother’s boyfriend, Guido, but he would only deal with Grandma, so she ended up supplying us.”

“Damn … so you were really working for Grandma?” Gigi asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that. But she was our new connect,” Chico said.

Shaking her head, Gigi couldn’t help but smile. “I’m always the last to find out.”

“I know this ain’t a good time, but now that Grandma’s dead, I’ma need you to holla at Guido for me when it’s time to reup.”

Gigi nodded. “I got you.”

“Hop in. I’ll give you a ride back to the block.”

“Nah, that’s all right. I need time to think. The train ride should do me some good.”

“A’ight … holla when you need me. I mean that,” Chico said, before pulling away from the sidewalk.

With tears still staining her cheeks, Gigi couldn’t help but smile as she fingered her Lazarus chain. Even in death, Grandma
was making sure she was taken care of. She dried her tears and headed for her mother’s house to tell the rest of her family that Grandma was gone. Grandma had done everything for Gigi, and Gigi was going to do everything for her grandma, starting with never selling drugs again.

Holiday Hell

Dee Blackmon

Chapter One

R
oberta Holiday flew down the speckled Berber-carpeted stairs as fast as her shaky legs would take her. She wobbled on the last three stairs but managed to right herself immediately. If she showed any signs of her addiction, then Carlos would never give her the money. He never dealt with hypes because he knew they weren’t reliable. But everything would be okay once she got the money. Life would be great once she got her fix.

She took a deep breath, stopped at the hallway mirror to put on lipstick and fluff her dull, flat, lifeless hair, then entered Carlos’s office. His handsome, muscular, mahogany body was hunched over his desk, the telephone pressed to his ear. She glanced around his office quickly. The office’s once stark white walls were now a creamy beige, and earth-tone accents had been
strategically placed around the room. Plush throw rugs with beige, green, and brown hues were strewn across the hardwood floor. It looked rugged. It looked like ’Los.

Carlos’s voice rose above what Roberta knew for a fact was Christmas music. She distinctly heard the Temptations’ version of “Silent Night.” Roberta wasn’t sure if she was hearing things during her drug-induced craze, but she thought she heard one of the Temptations tell baby Jesus to “relax his mind.” If her situation wasn’t so fucked up, she may have considered laughing, because a man telling Jesus to relax was funny as hell. “I don’t give a fuck about Christmas. The motherfucker better have my money by tomorrow or he can start looking for a wheel-chair because I’m breaking both his legs.”

Carlos slammed the cordless phone down in its cradle, rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension, and looked up at Roberta. At least a shell of Roberta. His six-foot frame moved gracefully as he paced back and forth while looking at Roberta. He ran his hand across his short curly hair as he often did when he was in deep thought. Something was up with her. He intended to find out what it was, but he’d keep playing along like the fucking idiot she thought he was. So, since she asked for a loan of ten thousand dollars, he was going to give it to her. Now, whether she was telling the truth—about being in the process of refinancing her house and expecting the equity to be deposited three days before Christmas—had yet to be proved. Carlos had two weeks. So did Roberta.

Carlos sat back down and asked smoothly, “You show my cousin a good time, Bobbie?” In exchange for the loan, Carlos
asked Roberta to sex his cousin, who he said hadn’t had sex in a while. Roberta had let his fat fuck of a cousin pump into her upstairs for a good half hour, and, while a part of her was disgusted, she chose to focus on her goal—money for drugs.

“Yes,” Roberta replied, thinking how much Carlos looked like the original
Miami Vice
star, Philip Michael Thomas. It was too bad his cousin hadn’t inherited such good looks.

“Now, what did you need the money for?” Carlos asked, as he rested his right palm on a pile of money.

Roberta licked her lips nervously and replied, “It’s just a loan until I refinance.”

When Carlos looked as if he was going to renege on the deal, Roberta hastily added, “I have the appraisal paperwork right here in my purse. The amount more than covers the loan.”

Roberta rummaged through her purse and produced a wad of crinkled-up papers. She handed them to Carlos for a quick glance. The papers were legit, but she didn’t want him to have too much time to think about it and change his mind.

Carlos handed the appraisal papers back to Roberta and said, “Take the money.” He slid a stack of bills across his desk and watched her place the money in her bag, with what he thought were shaking hands.

“Two weeks, Bobbie. Two goddamn weeks. Not a day more. You fuck around with my money, and I’m coming for whatever you hold near and dear,” he threatened.

“Thank you, Carlos.”

Carlos stared at her so intently that she felt like he knew she was getting higher than a helium-filled balloon released on a
windy day. But he couldn’t have known. She was being ever so careful. Her own kids didn’t know, so there was no way Carlos could. She made certain to cover her tracks … literally.

When the black cordless phone rang again, although it startled her, she was grateful for the interruption.

Carlos jabbed his index finger in the air and said into the phone, “Either I get my money by Christmas Eve, or you tell that son of a bitch I’ll string him up by his balls and hang him on the Christmas tree downtown at the Monument. That will be his Merry-fucking-Christmas!”

The life of a loan shark, Roberta thought to herself.

Carlos stood angrily and walked to the lone window in the wood-paneled office. Christmas lights shone through the window and danced on the walls and the floor.

It was the reflection of a blue blinking light that drew Roberta’s attention to the floor. The blue reflection that blinked right beside a black duffel bag. A bag filled to capacity with cold hard cash.

Don’t fucking do it
, Roberta thought to herself.
Don’t do it!
Even as the admonition entered her mind, Roberta found herself leaning forward, reaching for the money in the bag while keeping an eye on Carlos’s back.

She thought about all the crack she could buy. Hell, all the heroin she could shoot into her veins. She could taste it even as she thought about it. Even her teeth began to tingle. She could even buy her daughters Christmas presents for a change. Life for a little while would be great.

Roberta didn’t think twice about it. She grabbed three handfuls of cash and stuffed them into her purse. She knew she
grabbed more than what Carlos had given her. No, not given,
loaned.
She had better remember that. She would be able to pay him back in a couple weeks, so she didn’t feel bad at all. Well, she felt bad, but not about taking the money. She had already convinced herself that she’d give it back before he ever truly missed it.

Roberta stood up when she heard Carlos end his call.

As he turned back around to face her, she barely looked into his eyes and said, “I appreciate it, Carlos. I’ll have it back to you in a couple weeks. I promise.”

She even gave him a hug as he stood there looking at her and not responding. She wished like hell she could read his mind. She needed Carlos to believe everything she was saying.

“Bobbie, I’ve known you for a lot of years. At any point have you considered me to be stupid?”

“Not at all ’Los,” Roberta mumbled, and tried to avert her eyes. “Are you willing to risk your daughter’s life on this loan? Because this time, if you don’t pay me back, I’m coming after her.”

Roberta fumbled with her purse straps then nibbled a piece of dry cuticle on her index finger.

“I swear I’ll pay you back. Just don’t hurt my daughters. Either of them.”

“Now that part’s up to you, isn’t it?”

Chapter Two

N
oelle Holiday shivered as the chill night air raised goose pimples on her café au lait–colored skin. She pulled her sky blue terry robe tighter and cinched it at the waist, making a double knot. Old Man Winter had hit early in Baltimore, and he wasn’t wasting any time.

Noelle peered out the window and saw Christmas decorations and lights on her neighbors’ lawns. At the age of twenty-four she was anti-Christmas. For starters, Noelle had been born on Christmas Eve, and for some strange twisted reason her mother had decided to name her after the Christmas song playing on the radio at the time of her birth. Secondly, why her mother would doom her to a life of teasing by naming her Noelle when their last name was Holiday was beyond her understanding.

And to make matters worse, Roberta Holiday still didn’t get it when she named Noelle’s eleven-year-old sister Paris. According to their mother, her youngest daughter was the closest she would ever get to having a real Paris holiday.

Noelle wondered where her mother was at three a.m. She prayed to God that she wasn’t with her demons. Said demons being crack, cocaine, and heroin.

Roberta had ninety days’ clean. Or so Noelle thought. She hadn’t had time to really check on her mother’s progress like she should. Hell, Noelle barely had time for herself. She was working three jobs to help her mother catch up on some of their bills, plus she was basically raising her sister. Noelle was exhausted.

Her every day started at five a.m., rain or shine. Noelle taught
a six
A.M.
hourlong aerobics dance class, then rushed back home to cook breakfast for her sister and get her off to school. She showered and sped downtown by nine a.m. to Focal Point Barbershop, where she braided and twisted men’s hair. And if that wasn’t enough, she left the barbershop at two p.m. to pick up Paris from school, help her with homework, fix a quick dinner, then back to the barbershop from four p.m. to six p.m. And how could she forget her third job as a waitress?

Exhausted was an understatement.

Yet here she was, awake at three a.m., worried about her mother, even though her alarm would be chirping in exactly two hours.

Noelle slipped her cell phone from the pocket in her robe and dialed her mother’s cell for the third time. And for the third time the phone went right to voice mail.

“Is everything okay, Noelle?”

“Paris, sweetheart, what are you doing awake?”

Paris shrugged her shoulders. As she did so, the action reminded Noelle that she had to twist the new growth in her sister’s hair. Paris’s double-strand twist looked adorable on her. She was growing up so fast. Even though they had different fathers, Noelle and Paris looked a lot alike. They had the same high cheekbones, big chocolate brown doe eyes, and full pouty lips. Since neither of them knew who her father was, or what he looked like, each had to have taken after someone on their mother’s side of the family.

“Mom’s using again, isn’t she?” Paris asked.

Noelle turned from the window abruptly and walked over to the stairs.

“What makes you say that, Paris?”

“It’s three in the morning, she’s not home, and you have that worried look on your face. You want to go get her, don’t you?”

“Do you think I should?”

“Yes,” Paris replied. “I’ll go get dressed. We both know where she is.”

Noelle tightened the black scrunchie around her copper-colored curly locs.

“Okay, let’s go get Mom. But this time, promise me you’ll wait in the car.”

“I promise,” Paris replied with a lot of spunk and an attitude well beyond her years. “But if anybody bothers you, I’m coming in with the Club swinging. That thing can do more than lock the steering wheel.”

Noelle smiled. She wished she had had half the smarts and confidence at eleven that Paris had. The young girl was turning out to be a ride-or-die female all the way.

“Okay, Paris. Deal.”

Chapter Three

N
oelle cruised down one of the worst streets in Baltimore. Her ten-year-old red Toyota Camry threatened to announce her arrival because of a small hole in her muffler. Just as soon as she had some extra money, she was planning to have it fixed.