Authors: Treasure Blue
Get It Girls
GET IT GIRLS
Copyright © 2011 by Treasure E. Blue
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Book Layout: Candace K. Cottrell
Cover Design: Emily Mahon
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2011936943
ISBN: 978-1-936-39924-6 pbk
ISBN: 978-1-936-39923-6 ebook
eISBN-13: 9-781-9363-9923-9
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States
This book is dedicated to Mr. Marvin L. Grant.
Our son, father, brother, uncle, and cousin. Words cannot express how your passing on has made an profound impact in our lives. Though we have moved on, you continue to have a place in our hearts, and all we have are those memories and wonderful times that we will cherish for the rest of our lives. Thank you for always being you and not changing who you were for anyone. You will continue to have life through us always and forever.
Until we meet again, RIP Marvin aka Shorty!
I
would first like to thank all my loyal readers who expressed their kind words and praise for my very first novel, Harlem Girl Lost. You made it an instant classic, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your unwavering support since my debut.
Over the years, I’ve received literally thousands of e-mails and letters asking if there will be a Harlem Girl Lost 2. My initial response was that I doubted if there would be one because I killed off so many of the supporting characters in the first book. And to be even more candid with you, I also loved the happy ending and wanted to leave well enough alone.
I was at a speaking engagement at a local high school in Harlem, when I was posed this recurring question by a student during the panel discussion. After I expressed to her that I highly doubted if there would ever be a part two, she immediately posed another question:
“In your opinion, how would Jessica’s life have turned out if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with Silver at such a young age?”
I have to admit that it was an excellent question, and it was one of the first times in my life I was at loss for words. Over the next few days, the young girl’s question continued to resonate in my mind, and that’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks.
What would have happened not only to Jessica, but to her entire crew of Vonda, Tiny, and Lynn?
I then called up my good friend and fellow Harlemite, bestselling author and mentor K’wan, and ran the idea past him. He thought it was genius and said it would be considered an alternate reality. The rest is history.
So ladies and gentleman, without further ado, I proudly present to you, Harlem Girl Lost 2: The Beginning....
Enjoy,
Treasure
A
y, yo, Jessica! Jessica! Come down before we be late for school,” yelled Vonda.
She, Tiny, and Lynn stood impatiently in front of Jessica Jones’s parents’ three-family brownstone on 138th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue in Harlem. Jessica’s was the only one out of the four of them whose family owned their own property in the upscale section of Harlem’s exclusive Strivers Row, a block that housed well-to-do black professionals such as actors, doctors, lawyers, or businessmen. Though Jessica’s parents had typical city jobs—her mother was a public school teacher and her father was a postal employee—they had the vision to sacrifice and invest in the neighborhood way before Harlem became cliché.
Vonda and Tiny, lived only two blocks away on 140th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenue in a tenement building. Their neighborhood was like night and day to Striver’s Row because it was the ghetto. Lynn’s family lived in Drew Hamilton projects on 142nd Street and 7th Avenue, and she developed a complex because of the stigma that only poor people lived in the projects.
Tiny sucked her teeth and scowled. “She does this same shit every day. We should just leave her ass to teach her lesson.” Tiny looked toward Vonda to see if she would agree with her, but Vonda said nothing. “As soon as she comes out anyway her mama gonna call her back again like she always do. You watch,” Tiny continued.
Lynn and Vonda continued to ignore Tiny as if she wasn’t even there. They were more than used to her complaining, and everything Tiny said just flew by them.
Just then, the front door at the top of the stairs flew open and Jessica came rushing out as her book bag dangled precariously over her shoulder. Halfway down the stairs Jessica heard her mother call her, and she stopped her in place.
Tiny rolled her eyes and shook her head knowingly. “What I fucking tell you?” she said loud enough for Jessica to hear, but low enough so that Jessica’s mother didn’t.
Jessica closed her eyes and reluctantly walked back up the steps. Her mother stood at the doorway with her arms folded and said, “Jessica, what have I told you about sneaking out the house without seeing me first?”
“What, Mama?” Jessica sucked her teeth and sighed. “I’m going to be late for school, and I have a first period test.”
“Don’t get smart with me in front of your friends, Jessica, because I will embarrass you in front of them too.”
Jessica decided to remain silent because she knew it wasn’t worth getting into it with her mother in front of her friends. Mrs. Jones watched her daughter’s three friends walk off toward the avenue and then squared her grim eyes back to her seventeen-year-old daughter.
“After school when you wait for your brother to get off the bus, I want you right back in this house. Take the food out of the freezer for dinner and then fix your brother a snack. You hear me?”
Jessica rolled her eyes, “But Ma, he’s got his own key and—”
“But, my ass, now you heard what I said, Jessica. I want you home as soon as you get out of school waiting on your brother.”
Jessica knew there wasn’t anything she could have said that would change her mother’s mind, so she just kept quiet and walked down the stairs in a huff.
“And I’m going to call at 4:30 to make sure you home too. You hear me, Jessica?”
“I hear you!” Jessica yelled in a tone she knew would infuriate her mother, but she didn’t care any longer because the damage was done. Besides, she had already turned the corner and was too far out of sight to be reprimanded any more. When Jessica caught up with her friends a block away, she began apologizing for the tardiness. “I’m sorry, y’all, but my mom be bugging out and making me do stuff when she know I got to go to school.”
Never to miss out on an opportunity to put Jessica on blast, Tiny added her two cents to it. “Yeah, but you be making us late and we the ones that got to pay for it.”
Ever since Jessica befriended Vonda in their freshman year, Tiny despised Jessica for such an intrusion, because she and Vonda had been best friends since they were in Pampers. Since Vonda grew to be nearly six feet tall, and Tiny was barely five-feet-nothing, they were the consummate odd couple and sometimes received ridicule over it. Vonda was dark-skinned with a radiant, smooth complexion. Keen eyes on top of her statuesque body made her look like a beauty queen.
Jessica had a soft, light brown complexion and equaled Vonda in height and stature. Jessica was highly sought after because of her defining beauty wherever they went. To Vonda, it was refreshing to have someone take the heat off of her because boys, men, and even women would constantly harass her because of her looks, and Jessica bore half of the burden.
