Pride (14 page)

Renata had acted a pure fool for my wedding dinner. The Crown Baptist Church had a very large and beautiful banquet room that they rented out to the community, and Renata had catered food from almost every gourmet restaurant in the city.

The hall was decorated in our wedding theme, which was a gathering of different cultures. There were colorful little flags from a lot of different countries hanging everywhere, and the centerpieces were done up in flags that represented all the members of our wedding party.

Tomorrow, Gino would be wearing a white tux with a Kente-print bow-tie to represent the continent of Africa, and his best man and two groomsmen were wearing black tuxes with bow-ties that repped the countries they came from. Frank’s bow-tie had red, green, and white stripes like the Italian flag, Jason’s tie was red with little golden-yellow stars because his family was from China, and Slick Sallie’s bow-tie was bright green and had a bunch of smiling leprechauns all over it as a tribute to his Irish father. It was odd for a wedding, but it was what Gino wanted and I really didn’t object.

After all that shit DarQuese had talked about the food, you should have seen her aunts, uncles, and cousins getting their grit on. They were killing the buffet stations that Renata had arranged by tasty themes.

There was a table for fruits and desserts, one for soul food, and one stacked with lobster, shrimp, and Alaskan King crab legs. There were also tables loaded with Mexican food, an assortment of Italian dishes, Chinese food, pasta, and a real big table overflowing with barbeque ribs.

I was glad to see a server posted up at each station because folks were trying to fix stupid to-go plates. All the guests seemed to be real impressed. Everybody kept saying that if the food was this good at the wedding dinner, then they couldn’t wait until tomorrow to see what the reception menu was going to be like.

Everything was going perfectly until a little situation jumped off outside in the parking lot that pissed me off. I couldn’t believe folks were clowning and trying to turn my classy catered dinner party into a straight-up hood classic.

It turned out that somebody had been smoking weed in the bathroom. The church lady who had rented us the building came over and told me she had smelled marijuana as she was walking down the hall. When she went into a bathroom to investigate, she busted a bunch of young girls puffing dutches and sniffing blow, and she chased them all outside.

Cynthia and Renata both insisted on coming with me to check it out, and when I opened the front door and peeked outside I saw a bunch of people having their own little party in the parking lot.

It was about five or six of Quese’s little guttersnipe teenage cousins. They had some music pumping, and their grown asses were out there smoking, drinking, and letting some young thugs feel all over their behinds. I got real mad when I saw who was with them.

“What the hell are
you
doing here?” I hollered at a dude who was busy getting down on a barbequed rib.

It was Pit. He was sitting on the hood of a car and chewing on our catered food. I couldn’t believe he had rolled up with his crew to crash my wedding dinner, and I automatically got mad with DarQuese because she had to be the one who had told him where we would be.

Pit peeped me staring at him from the doorway and licked his lips, then stuck up his middle finger.

“Yo, tell ya fuckin’ man he’s gonna get sat down!” he yelled, trying to impress the young girls who were now laughing and sitting all over my dinner guests’ cars. “Y’all muh’fuckas about to take a honeymoon to
hell!
” he said. “For real, darling. You better enjoy ya little party tonight, Juice, because trust me, the honeymoon is about to be a nightmare!” Then that fool opened his mouth and laughed long and hard. Real hysterical like.

“Um…sorry, but none of them were invited so they’re not our guests,” I told the church lady calmly as I ignored Pit’s childish ass and closed the door. Cynthia was from the hood, but I was embarrassed that Renata had witnessed all that. I didn’t want her to think me and Gino were all about hanging out with trifling drug dealers and under-age cokeheads.

The incident almost put a cloud over my night, but I fought it off. Forget about it, I told myself, because overall the night was going really smooth. What Pit and his friends did outside was outside. Inside, a whole banquet room full of people were laughing and grubbing, and having a real good time together. Black, Italian, Puerto Rican, it didn’t matter. Tonight the world belonged to me and Gino, and that meant tonight the world was good and right.

$$$$$

That is, until Gino got all suspicious and messed everything up. I still hadn’t told him I was pregnant but I don’t know how he didn’t guess it. My stomach was still real flat, but I was sleeping a whole lot, I had to run and pee every thirty minutes, and even though I’d heard about women who lost their appetite when they were pregnant, the exact opposite seemed to be going down with me.

I had never been crazy over food, but for the past few weeks I had been munching like a mutha. I mean I was putting it down at all hours of the day and night. Food didn’t make me sick. Not eating is what got my stomach all tossed up.

One of Quese’s cousins had just fixed me a big fat-man plate that was overflowing with a little bit of something from every food station. I was sitting at the bridal table with Cynt and Teenie and stuffing my face hard when Cynt put her hand on my arm.

“Juicy, you and Gino be real careful when y’all leave here tonight, okay?” Cynt said quietly. “I caught Quese crying at the shop earlier today. Pit’s been going at her ass.”

I stopped eating. “Pit went at Quese because of me and Gino?”

“You’re her girl, Juicy,” Cynt said with a shrug. “Pit is territorial, just like a dog. Quese is the one who brought y’all around on his turf.”

“He’s a fuckin’ bully,” I said, remembering the aggressive way he had approached me from the gate. Pit didn’t care that I was his girl’s friend. He would have eaten my pussy right in Quese’s shop if I had let him.

“Look, Pit is the one who started all that drama with Gino when he talked shit about my engagement ring,” I told Cynt. “How did he think he could step to me like that and my man wasn’t gonna raise up on him?”

Cynthia shrugged again. “I went to school with Pit when we was little, Juicy, and even as a second grader he was an evil-ass bastard. You know how cruel kids can be. They mean and they don’t give a fuck about nobody’s feelings. Well, if somebody even looked like they was teasing Pit back then, or even made like they was laughing at him because he was short, that dude got swole and got them back. A brick upside the head when you wasn’t looking. A poke in the leg with a real sharp pencil. The book bag hanging off your back suddenly set on fire…somebody always had to pay whenever Pit got clowned.”

 “That’s not my fault,” I said, picking up my fork. “Quese needs to smash him like a bug, then walk away and leave him alone.”

I had just dug into my plate again when the doors swung open and I saw Gino walk in with Slick Sallie.

“Excuse me, ladies,” Gino said to Cynt and Teenie as Sallie walked off into the crowd. “I need to holla at Juicy in private real quick.” Cynt and Teenie got up, and Gino sat down beside me and nodded at my packed plate.

“The whole hallway smells like sticky out there,” he said quietly. “You straight?”

His voice was calm and his words had love in them, but Gino couldn’t fool me. I knew exactly what he was thinking and what he was trying to say, and it was way more than I could handle at that point.

“What?” I paused with a sweet-and-sour shrimp halfway to my mouth and got defensive. “I don’t see you clocking nobody else’s fuckin’ plate.”

He backed off. “Never mind, Juicy. I didn’t mean nothing. Just forget it.”

I wasn’t buying that. He did mean something. He had smelled that Cush and come running to see if the scent was coming off of me. And since I was sitting around surrounded by food and stuffing my face, he had jumped right to the conclusion that I must have smoked some sticky and gotten the munchies.

I got pissed off because I had already given him my word that I wasn’t smoking anymore, and I felt that should’ve been good enough. But then again, I had also told him I’d never fucked with nobody else but him and his father, yet some stray niggah had claimed to know what I tasted like right up in his face.

Gino hadn’t gotten over that, and neither had I. Even though the baller from Philly had walked it back and denied it, I knew it still bothered Gino and he still wondered. It bothered me too. That was the only lie I had ever told my man and I felt real bad about it.

But I was still mad. “Just so you know, some of DarQuese’s cousins got caught smoking blunts in the bathroom,” I told him. “It wasn’t
me!
”

I didn’t tell Gino that Pit was outside in the parking lot eating our food and getting lifted with them young chicks. Pit was probably the one who had brought them the weed and the blow too. But I wasn’t mad enough to tell Gino that.

“I didn’t accuse you of nothing, Juicy,” he said.

“But you don’t really trust me, do you?” I asked, my voice getting small and tight. “I know you trust me some, but not all the way, right?”

“Hey, baby,” Gino put his hand over mine and assured me. “That’s not true. I do trust you.”

I sighed. No he didn’t. Not the way I trusted him. “You wanna know why I’ve been eating so much and acting this way lately?” I asked him. Forget the surprise announcement. This wasn’t the way I had planned it, but if I was going to be Gino’s wife then I really needed him to trust me all the way without any barriers.

Truthfully, sometimes I didn’t believe I was good enough for Gino. He had traveled a lot and lived other places. He was educated and sophisticated, and had class and swagger. I was just his father’s ex-chicken from 136th Street. But if we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, then I needed him to know without a doubt that he could trust my word on everything. That he could count on me not to take any more drugs, or see any other men, or put our child in any kind of danger whatsoever.

“The reason I’ve been acting all crazy is because–”

“Sshhh…” Gino said, leaning forward to kiss me quiet. “I
trust
you, Juicy-Mo,” he said. He pressed his lips to mine again. “I swear to God, I do. You ain’t gotta explain
nothing
to me, girl. I trust you. It’s you and me against the world, baby. Just us two.”

I took a deep breath and made myself chill as he pulled me close and kissed the sweet-and-sour sauce from my lips. The only thing I wanted in this world was to be Gino’s wife and to have his baby. In less than twenty-four hours me and my man would take that ultimate walk down the aisle, and everything would be all good. Yes, I told myself as Gino embraced me in his arms. In less than twenty-four hours the rest of our lives would be set, and every last one of our dreams would come true.

CHAPTER 16

The sun was shining brightly above the church parking lot where two stylish white limousines idled in wait. The young drivers were clean-shaven and professionally dressed, and they appeared to be busily wiping specks of road dust from their glistening chrome rims.

Around them, wedding guests streamed steadily into the church, smiling happily and chattering non-stop. The women were dressed in vibrant colors and large fashionable hats, and the men wore tailored suits and rented tuxedos.

“I gotta take a piss,” said the taller of the two drivers. He was known as Zero on the streets of Los Angeles because of the number of witnesses he was known to leave behind at the scene of a crime. He glanced around slyly, then pulled out his gat and chambered a round in the head.

“Yo!” The slim, lighter-skinned dude frowned at the sight of the gun. “Stick with the plan,” he warned. “Remember what the fuck Ace told you.” He knew how hot-headed Zero could be. Niggah would get sent on a mission to deliver a verbal message and his trigger-happy ass would end up laying a whole house down.