Rich Girl Problems (19 page)

T
his wasn't meant to be a fucked up fairy tale. It was meant to be as sensual as the first night Kendu grooved between her thighs and they made love until sunrise. As surreal as her heartbeat used to be when she'd whimsically doodle his name.

Never. Ever. Did she imagine, at least until this moment, that she'd dream of pointing a gun to his head and pulling the trigger.

Motherfucker.

She sipped her smooth black tea and looked around at her kitchen, from the sleek black and cherrywood cabinets with the chrome handles, to the chalkboard wall that encompassed the doorway—which led to the hallway. She glanced over at the camera zoomed in on her and then skipped her eyes over to the open space, designated as the family room. Her gaze landed on the red leather sectional and her mind was quickly lost in a memory of once sitting there and watching Kendu on
Scoreboard,
his ESPN morning show, feeling privileged to be his wife.

Milan giggled and her eyes danced over to the fireplace mantel where their wedding picture used to be until the night of his birthday party, when she'd snatched the picture off the mantel and tossed it across the room.

She couldn't believe he was having an affair.

An affair . . .

I can't live like this. I have to leave him or kill his ass.

Tears filled her eyes.

You'd better not drop a damn tear.

“Milan,” Kendu's voice boomed into the kitchen from the hallway. He stepped in through the doorway, wearing gray sweats, a ribbed white tank top, and Adidas slippers. “We need to talk.”

Silence.

He sat at the kitchen table. “I need you to talk to me.”

More silence.

Milan quickly wiped away the tears that had escaped and returned to looking down at the concrete kitchen table she'd filled with pictures to place in her son's baby book. She reached for a photo that she and Kendu had taken a few months before the baby was born. In Vegas. Standing before a black Elvis who renewed their vows.

The corners of Milan's lips stretched toward her ears as she smiled and picked up the scissors. She traced the sharp and cutting steel around the shape of her image and then moved on to Kendu's, stopping short at the outline of his ears.

I'm so exhausted.

Tears haunted her eyes. She cut around the side of his face, over the crown of his head, down the other side, and slowly slid the scissors partially across his paper neck. She stopped and ran a finger across the slice.

I'm so sick of your shit.

She decapitated him and his head slipped to the floor, where she left it.

“Milan.” He waved his hands before her face as if he were seducing her out of a trance. “You just cut my damn head off in the fuckin' picture?!” He looked disgusted. “What kind of drugs are you on? Yo', what the fuck?”

“You better get away from me.”

“We need to talk.”

“I don't have anything to say.” She walked over to the stove and stirred her pot.

“Milan—”

“Mr. and Mrs. Malik.” Rosalynn, the maid, hurried into the kitchen, breathing heavily. “Did either of you happen to see Aiyanna's rabbit?”

“No.” Kendu frowned. “Why?”

“I went in there to clean the cage and it's gone! The thing is gone!” Rosalynn looked perplexed. “I looked everywhere.”

“Calm down, Ros,” Kendu said. “I'm sure you'll find it.”

“But how does a caged rabbit disappear? You think the nanny moved it?”

“No,” Milan said. “She's been out all morning, taking the baby for a stroll.”

Rosalynn shook her head. “Well, I'm going to keep looking. I promised Aiyanna I would take care of her rabbit while she was in South Africa. Now I don't know what I'm going to tell her.” She walked out of the room, shaking her head.

Kendu stared at Milan and she could tell by the look in his eyes that he attempted to read her mind. “I'm not having an affair,” he said.

She ignored him and instead walked over to the stove and removed the lid from her pot.

“Damn, this smells good.” He gave her an awkward smile. “The chef made it?”

“No.”

“Who made it?”

“Me.”

“Where's the chef?”

“Off.”

“Do you think you can say more than one word?”

“No.”

Kendu gave Milan a once-over before cupping his hand over hers. She shot him a look that ricocheted a round of invisible bullets into him.

He inched his hand back and sat up straight in the chair. “You know I love you. And I would never do anything to hurt you. Please talk to me.”

Talk to you? Talk to you? You'd better get the fuck out of my face playing stupid. You know as well as I do that you are a lyin' piece of shit who only thinks with his dick. But I got something for you and that tramp-ass whore you're cheating on me with! And as soon as that private eye I hired gives me the information I need, oh, baby, I will show you and your prostitute a thing or two!

“I don't have anything to say.” Milan turned the fire off under her pot and the spicy smell of fresh curry, carrots, pigeon peas, and mixed peppers greeted her nose. She inhaled the aroma. “It's done.” She turned to Kendu. “Would you like some?”

“Hell, I don't know. Should I eat it?”

“Choice is yours.” She fixed herself a bowl.

“A'ight, I'll take a little. Maybe while we eat, we can discuss some things.”

“Sure.” Milan grabbed two porcelain bowls and filled them with curried shreds of meat and chunky vegetables. She set Kendu's bowl before him.

“This looks good.” He dug in. “Is this curried chicken?”

“No,” Milan said as she set her bowl on the table and took her seat.

“No?” Kendu dipped his spoon back into the bowl and filled his mouth. “What is it?”

“Rabbit.”

Kendu froze. “What?”

“It's rabbit,” she said calmly.

Kendu sat completely still. Then, as if a slow, shocking wave washed over him and suddenly crashed and exploded in the center of his stomach, he heaved and hurled across the table, turning the sleek black cabinets speckled orange. Kendu leaped from his seat, rocked the table, and sent the bowls to the floor, shattering them and covering the wood planks with shards of porcelain and lumps of food.

“Sick ass! Are you fuckin' crazy?!” Kendu ran into the powder room. “What the fuck,” traveled down the hallway as Kendu emptied his stomach into the toilet, “is wrong with you?!

“I don't believe you did some shit like that, Milan!” He continued to vomit. “You cooked the fuckin' rabbit?! I should kick yo' ass for that! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“Nothing.” Milan cracked half a smile.

“I knew your ass was crazy!” He gagged, hurled, and hard splashing sounds rose from the toilet.

“I'm fine.”

“I don't believe this shit!” he said, struggling to breathe. “Fuckin' twisted!”

Milan wiped the corners of her mouth and as she rose from her chair, she spotted the rabbit hopping toward the powder room. “I'll be back.”

“Yeah, you do that. You need to take your sick ass out of here!” He gagged. “Motherfuckers get killed for less than that! How the hell could you cook my daughter's pet and then feed it to me!” Kendu heaved and as Milan walked past him, she picked up the rabbit, whom she'd hidden in a makeshift cage behind the sofa, opened the front door, and set it free.

M
onday afternoon is when Chaunci realized she'd fucked up. She stared at her engagement ring on the nightstand and into the band where Emory's name was engraved. She closed her eyes and wondered what he was doing and how he would feel if he knew she'd spent a taboo weekend with another man.

She pulled the sheets over her breasts as she looked down at a sleeping Grant. She wanted desperately to nurse his morning hard-on, but decided she needed to get her thoughts in order so that she could return to New York ready to meet her knight. Emory. The man who'd practically saved her life when she was emotionally bankrupt.

What the hell am I going to tell this man? This was only supposed to be overnight. Not all weekend.

“Tell him you've changed your mind.”

Chaunci froze. “I thought you were sleeping . . . and how did you know what I was thinking?”

Grant sat up with his back pressed against the headboard. “It was a wild guess. Are you regretting this weekend?”

“No.” She kissed him. “It was one of the best weekends of my life. I just can't do this again.”

“Why not?”

“I'm engaged to be Emory's wife.” She tossed the covers off her and headed into the bathroom.

Grant followed her. “You don't have to marry him.”

“I love him.”

“If you could so easily spend a weekend with me, then loving him is not even part of the equation.”

“You are out of line.” Chaunci turned on the shower and stepped in.

“Am I?” Grant stepped in behind her, the water gracing both of their bodies. “Or are you trying to fulfill an obligation that you are no longer required to meet?” He placed kisses from the base of her neck to her ass, where he tossed her salad, forcing her to cry out his name. Spinning her around and licking her clit, he said, “Don't worry about calling the wedding off. I'll do it.”

A Week Later

 

V
era sat in her office, watching red numbers flash across her iPad. She tried her best to muster a smile for the camera, but she couldn't.

She hadn't heard from her mother in a week, and instead of the days getting better, the wounds of having a drug-addicted mother and fucked up childhood memories felt like fresh slices to her skin.

Tears filled the corners of her eyes as her cell phone rang. She read the caller ID: Private.

“Hello?” She cleared her throat.

“This Vera?” a raspy and unfamiliar male voice said.

Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. “Who is this?”

“This Vera?”

“Yeah,” she said in a panic. “Who is this?”

“Don't worry about who this is. Just know you need to come and get yo' mama. She down here in Lincoln projects courtyard lookin' sick off that shit and you know what shit I'm talkin' 'bout.”

Click.

Vera held the phone to her breasts and looked into the distance. She shook her head and placed the phone back on her desk.

Doesn't matter.

Fuck Rowanda.

Vera nestled into the soft leather of her seat seeing visions of her mother—naked. Needle in her arm. Belt wrapped around her bicep. Nodding out. Slipping. Banging her head on the claw-foot tub. Dead. Arms stretched out and blood dripping like she hung on the crucifix.

What if she dies?

She's already dead to me.

That's your mother.

Fuck. Her.

No.

Fuck. Her.

You don't mean that.

Vera sat up and ran her hands over her face. This was not the plight she was supposed to have.

Fuck.

Shit never ends.

The Lincoln projects felt like the longest ride of her life. She hated that cameras refused to leave her side once she told them where she was going, but whatever.

This is reality TV.

Well, welcome to my reality.

Vera parked her BMW X6 in front of a rusted, red, and graffiti-painted sign that read, “Welcome to Lincoln Garden Projects.” She sat for a moment and stared into the memories dancing through the courtyard. There was something eerily tranquil about this place—the place she once called home.

She spotted Rowanda sitting on a park bench in the center of the courtyard, next to an unraveling basketball net and concrete checkerboard table, sipping a beer as she stared into the street.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Vera said with every ounce of venom that she could.

“Why are you here?” Rowanda looked around. “This ain't no place for you.”

Vera smirked. “What. The. Fuck. Is wrong with you?” Before Rowanda could answer, Vera continued, “I'm sooooo sick of saving you, and looking out for you, and mothering you, and being all this shit to you and you give me nothing but false goddamn hope and grief. I
was not
pregnant with you. You
are not
my child. You are my mother, so why the hell am I always saving you?!”

“Go home, Vera,” Rowanda said quietly, as if she were talking more to herself than to Vera. “I am who I am, and I don't need you saving me. Okay? So go back to Fifth Avenue.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Vera looked her over. “Don't pull that ‘go back to Fifth Avenue' bullshit on me, as if that's all I understand. I know what it is to be in hell and not be able to leave that motherfucker.”

“No, you don't, Vera.” Rowanda sipped her beer. “You can't even begin to understand what it is to have demons that ride your back, day in and day out. Night after night.”

“So you go back and get high? That's the solution? Smoke the motherfuckers away.”

“I never said that.”

“Then what are you saying? Why do you keep doing this to me?!”

“This is not about you!”

“It's never about me! It's always about you and your monkey. Fuck me.” Vera stabbed her finger into her chest. “Fuck my child. Fuck our hopes that finally you have got it together. Fuck it all, because suddenly you need to outrun some bullshit and I should just deal with it.”

“Listen to me. Me getting high is about me. Not you. Stop taking responsibility for me and my shit.”

Vera wiped tears and bit down on the inside of her cheek. “If you would stop fucking up, I wouldn't need to keep taking responsibility for your shit. Got strangers calling me to come and get you. I don't need that shit.”

“I didn't tell nobody to call you. Go home.”

“Well, somebody called me and I'm here now, damn it! ”

“Go. Home.”

“You think it's that easy?”

“It should be!”

“It's not!” Vera screamed. “Now why did you do this? And why are you looking like you're about to pass out?” Vera's eyes combed Rowanda's flushed skin and the sweat dripping down her face.

“It's nothing wrong with me!”

“It has to be something wrong with you. Or at least it better be, because after tonight, if this is the goddamn life you want”—Vera pointed around—“then I'm done with you. And I mean that.”

Rowanda hesitated. “Vera, I don't need you passing judgment. Just listen.”

“Judgment about what?” Vera said, aggravated. “What would make me more judgmental than I'm feeling at this moment?”

Rowanda shook her head. “Listen to me.”

“I'm listening.”

“I was so deep into my addiction—”

“You could never be deeper than you are at this moment.”

“Would you just listen to me?”

“I'm listening.”

“Not long after you went to live with Cookie, I had a baby.”

“What?”

“I was so out there and getting so high that I didn't even know I was pregnant.”

“You had a what?”

“I was too busy gettin' fucked up. Out there prostituting. Doing anything to get high. Trying to run from all sorts and shades of shit. So busy in search of something to take me out of this motherfucker, that I didn't even know I was carrying a baby.”

“A baby?”

Tears poured from Rowanda's eyes into the creases of her neck. “And when I gave birth to him.”

“Him?”

“Him.” Rowanda snorted and attempted to crack half a smile. “He was a beautiful baby. He had deep chocolate around his ears and fingertips, and he was so long. . . .” she said to the distance. “And I knew he was going to be dark, strong, and handsome.”

“What happened to the baby?” Vera.

“I wanted him so bad.” Rowanda rocked. “I wanted me and you, and him, to run off and leave this goddamn dump. I wanted to so bad, but I was soooo deep into my addiction, that I couldn't stop getting fucking high. No matter what. I had to have that shit. Smack. Dope. Suicide. I had to have it. And even though I was in labor with him, I stayed in that abandoned, nasty-ass, get-high palace, sucking dick and snortin' that shit. And when my water broke and the baby started to bust through my goddamn pussy, er'body in that spot fled and the only one who stood by me was my friend, Queen. She practically carried me to the hospital.”

“Where was the baby's father?”

Rowanda sipped her beer. “I was a junkie, Vera. He had a million fuckin' fathers.”

Silence.

She continued, “After I had him, the hospital wouldn't let me take him. They said I wasn't fit. And I wasn't, but I still wanted him. So I would go to the hospital every day to feed him. They would let me hold him and kiss him. But he couldn't go home with me. And Cookie had you, so there was no way I could call her and tell her that the junkie done had another baby.”

“So what did you do?”

“I fed him every day, until the day I went back to the hospital and the nurses said that Social Services had placed him.”

“Oh, my God.”

“And do you know what?”

“What?”

“I kept up with him for a while. I found out where he was and I would go to the school yard and watch him play. Sneak and take pictures of him.”

“Did he ever see you?”

“No. I did that for years and then I went on a drug run one week and when I went back to that school, I didn't see him anymore.”

“So you don't know what happened to him?”

“I know that he grew up, got married, had two children, and became a football legend.” She pulled a picture from her pocket. “Look at him. I took this picture when he was five.”

Vera looked at the picture. “I don't even know what to say.”

“I found him, Vera,” Rowanda said as silent tears ran from her eyes and over her lips.

“Who is he?”

“Ken . . . du.”

“Kendu?” Vera looked into the distance and the vision of the way Rowanda stared at Kendu when he entered the party played before her. She continued to look into space and thought about how tears danced in Rowanda's eyes when Kendu told his story.

“Oh my God, Rowanda!” Vera turned back toward her mother and screamed as she saw Rowanda convulsing with foam oozing from the sides of her lips.