Scandalous Heroes Box Set (53 page)

“That’s one thing that you don’t need to do. You can break the door or it can fall and shatter which makes a shitload of noise.” He looked around and then walked to the kitchen window next to the kitchenette. He unlatched it and then nodded at her. “There. Check it every so often to make sure your mother doesn’t notice its not latched.”

“Thank you,” she said shyly.

He walked to the refrigerator and opened it. She didn’t mind; he deserved something to drink after riding her all the way up the hill.

“I can make us some hot chocolate,” she offered.

He nodded his acceptance. “When will your mother be home?”

Vanessa removed her coat, hat and gloves and dumped them on a kitchen chair. “She doesn’t come home until ten or eleven.” She glanced at the clock. It was barely seven. “She works a second job.” She said quickly. “At night she works at a bar. She’s a bartender.” Her eyes were wide when they looked at him and he didn’t respond.

Scotty felt sorry for the kid. He’d heard what those kids had been calling her and he was pretty sure that she had never even suspected.

“Go upstairs and wash your face. I’ll make the hot chocolate.”

Vanessa gave him a surprised look. “You won’t…you won’t leave will you?” She whispered.

He shook his head and after another hesitation she turned and headed out the room.

Scotty appraised the clean kitchen. He then began opening cabinets searching for chocolate mix.

Vanessa turned on the bathroom light and looked at herself in the mirror. Her ponytails were loose and hair was hanging in her face. Her nose was no longer bleeding but it was smeared with dried blood and snot. With a sigh she quickly washed her face and then removed her barrettes and finger combed her hair until it was smooth. She was about to go back down to the kitchen but her feet carried her to her mother’s room.

Vanessa turned on the light and looked around the neat room that smelled like her mother’s soft perfume. Vanessa opened the closet door, searching for prostitute clothes and big high-heeled shoes. But her mother didn’t have those things. She hurried to the bedside table finding aspirin and some papers. Vanessa examined each piece of paper until she saw a check stub from Cincinnati Belle Telephone Company.

Vanessa clutched it happily. Her mother worked at a real job! She kept searching through the papers. She just had to find another check stub, but this time from the bar. The bar was called Rockets but that was about all Vanessa knew about it.

When she came to the end of the papers she pulled open each of her mother’s drawers searching for more paper work but there was nothing from a bar. Her eyes were watering when she noticed Scotty standing in the doorway. She reached for her mother’s pillow and clutched it to her chest and face. At the soft smell of her mother’s Afro Sheen and Jergens hand lotion Vanessa began to cry.

Scotty watched uncomfortably. He entered the bedroom and sat down on the bed next to her, and after a moment he placed an arm around her shoulder feeling her body shake with the force of her tears. She looked at him suddenly.

“Do you know what my mother is?”

It took him a moment but eventually he nodded his head. 

~***~

They were in the kitchen drinking lukewarm chocolate milk. Her tears had stopped as soon as Scotty had confirmed her suspicions. She took a deep breath, breaking the silence.

“Did my…mother take me to your house when I was a little kid?” Scotty finished chewing a cookie before nodding. “So you knew me from when I used to live in Winton Terrace?”

“Yep,” he looked at her curiously. “You don’t remember at all?”

She shook her head. “I kind of remember living at the bottom of the hill but I don’t remember…faces. Were we friends?”

He smiled. “No. I was older. But you used to play with my sister and Phonso. He remembers you.”

She just frowned, wishing she could remember. “Is that why you’re…nice to me?”

Scotty drank the last of his chocolate. “Your mother was very nice to me. When I was little she used to sit for us sometimes.” Scotty looked off into the distance. “She used to make breakfast.” Vanessa was silent, waiting for him to explain. Eventually he shrugged. “We just had cereal at my house. I never had pancakes and waffles and sausage and grits.” Vanessa frowned. Scotty had never eaten a hot breakfast?

He raised a brow and his light eyes seemed even lighter. “She was very kind.”

“And now you’re very kind to me?”

He got up and carried his mug to the sink where he began to wash it out. “I’m just not an asshole, Vanessa. That’s all. Here, hand me your mug and that plate. We need to clean up or your mother is going to know that you broke in here. Go upstairs and clean up those papers.”

She did as she was told but knew that her mother would still know that she had been in her things. She just seemed to have a knack for sniffing out things like this. Well, Vanessa had no intentions of pretending that she didn’t know. She wanted her mother to stop and she was going to make her stop!

When she returned downstairs Scotty was staring at the oversized painting of the African woman that looked like her mother. He gave her a grim smile. “It could be worse.”

Her face twisted angrily. “How? How could it be worse?”

“You could have been stuck with my mother.”

Her anger melted away. “Sorry. Thank you for everything.”

He shrugged. “We better go or your aunt is going to have the cops out looking for you.” She pulled on her coat and then hurried up to her room for an extra pair of gloves.

“Here. Wear these.”

He looked at them before pulling them on and didn’t complain that they were purple knit gloves clearly meant for a girl. They went out the front door and Scotty locked it from the inside before shutting it and testing to make sure it was securely locked.

“This time you pedal.”

She gave him a fearful look and he winked at her and smiled. “Climb on back. And this time hold on to me not my shirt. You almost pulled my clothes off.”

Her face warmed but if that’s the way he wanted it…She gripped him around his waist and shivered. Hot and cold chills ran up and down her body and she felt faint. She was almost hugging Scotty! As they headed down the hill she noticed that he wasn’t going as fast as he normally went.

“Go Scotty! Go!” She said and he began to pump the pedals of the bike instead of just coasting. Speeding down the hill she felt exhilarated instead of afraid. This must be the way it felt to fly! Laughter bubbled up in her chest as the bike sped down the hill and she couldn’t believe that she was laughing on the worst day of her life.

It was the end of 1977 and at the age of twelve Vanessa White had learned some monumental truths; that her mother sold her body for money, that being jumped and beaten up hurt your pride just as much as anything else, and that without a shadow of a doubt one day she would marry Scotty Tremont.

Chapter 11

“Oh my God, are you crazy!” Jalissa hollered when Vanessa finally showed up at the apartment.

“Shhh!” She said while entering. “Is your mother home?”

“No! And you’re lucky, too. What were you doing with Scotty?”

“He rode me up the hill to my house.”

Jalissa gasped. “You really went home? At night?”

“I wasn’t scared.” She hung up her coat and then eyed her cousin. “Do you know about my mother?”

“Know what?” The younger girl seemed to be honestly perplexed. “What?”

“Never mind.” She sat on the couch and Jalissa followed her.

“Did you do something with Scotty?”

Vanessa’s face warmed. She had wondered what it would be like to kiss him but decided it might be weird. The last time she’d been kissed her tooth had gotten knocked out. “No!”

“You want to, though.”

“Shut up.” She tackled her cousin and they began laughing. But Jalissa grew suddenly serious.

“We’re going to get the gang together and get those girls that jumped you.” She vowed.

Vanessa thought about the names that those girls had called her and she didn’t want that information spreading to all of her friends. If they knew then it would be over for her.

“Forget about it. I’m not worried about them. I’m kind of hungry. Let’s make some Jiffy Pop.”

~***~

Aunt Callista got home a short time before her mother did but pretended that she had been there all along. Vanessa silently gathered her things and then went to the car without speaking. She didn’t want to talk about anything so she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep until they got up the hill.

“How was school today, baby?” Her mother asked as she stuck the key into the lock.

“I got jumped.” Vanessa spoke coolly and closed the door after her. Her mother placed a gentle hand on her chin and looked at her face.

“What happened?”

Vanessa turned her head and took half a step back. “Some kids were calling me names.” She looked at her mother. “And they were saying bad things about you.”

Her mother scowled and then placed her hands on her hips. “Don’t let some silly kids suck you into a fight Vanessa.” She shook her head and kicked off her shoes and began removing her coat. “I know name calling hurts but they aren’t sticks and stones-“

“Mama, I didn’t say I got into a fight. I said I got jumped.” Vanessa headed up the stairs without removing her coat. She sat on her bed and waited.

“Vanessa!” Her mother called a few moments later. When she didn’t answer the door to her room opened and her mama was standing there. “Were you in my room?”

“Yes,” she replied without fear.

“Okay what the hell were you doing going through my things? You know not to do that!”

Vanessa watched her, feeling disgust, love, sadness, hate and regret all rolled up into one big impossible emotion. “When I got jumped I tried to call you. I was looking for something from Rockets…where you work. I called the operator but she couldn’t find Rockets. So I went through your things looking for something from where you work.”

Leelah White watched her daughter in a silence that felt endless. “What did those kids say about me?”

Vanessa started to tremble but she refused to cry or to back down. “That you were…a…that you are…” She couldn’t bring herself to say.

“That I’m what?”

“A…whore,” she whispered.

Leelah sighed and scratched her head. She shook her head again and then came into the room slowly. “Vanessa,” she sat down on the bed beside her daughter. “I’m no whore.”

Vanessa looked at her quickly, studying her face. “Those kids that said that,” she gave her daughter a piercing look, “don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.” Leelah closed her eyes and sighed. “I don’t want you to be…” Leelah swallowed and her voice sounded hoarse, “unprepared for anything that comes your way; including those bad-ass kids talking shit about things they know nothing about.”

Vanessa swallowed, her hope dwindling away.

“I work at the telephone company during the day.” She stared at her daughter. “I need to work a second job so that I can give us the life that I want us to live. It’s just a job. It’s not a definition of who I am,” She said adamantly Vanessa couldn’t look away from her mother’s eyes even though she wanted to. She wanted to go to sleep and she wanted this not to be happening. She wanted this to be a nightmare but her mother kept talking.

Leelah finally broke the gaze that held her daughter prisoner and she looked into the distance. “There is no Rockets and there is no bar. But I suppose you understand that now.” Leelah was silent for a long time before she continued. “But what I want you to know is that my entire motivation in this life is to get up out of this—all of it; not just Garden Hilltop and Winton Terrace but away from this lifestyle!“ Her voice softened as she waited for her daughter to look at her again. “My purpose in life is to take care of us-“

Vanessa jumped up from the bed and quickly removed her coat, gloves and hat. Leelah watched as her daughter busied herself, knowing that it was so that she wouldn’t have to hear her words…and would not have to look at her. This is what it feels like to die, Leelah thought.

Suddenly the little girl turned back to face her mother. “What about my daddy?” she asked, her voice emotionless. Her mother tried to reconcile that robotic voice coming from her child. Vanessa waited. “They said I was a trick baby.” Leelah shook her head in denial. “Who is my daddy? Is he…do you even know him?”

Leelah looked down and grimaced as if in pain. “You are no trick baby, Vanessa.”

But she could take no more and she left the room. Leelah went to her bathroom and closed the door. She turned on the shower and with the sound of water hitting the porcelain as a backdrop she slid down to the floor and covered her face and wept.

~***~

The next day after school Vanessa informed Jalissa that she wasn’t going back to Winton Terrace.

“Are you for real? Van, my mother is going to be pissed! You just got lucky the last time-”

“So,” she replied without bothering to look at her cousin. “I’m not going back.” That morning her mother had informed her that while she was staying with aunt Callista, she was no longer allowed to go outside. It angered her that she was expected to be a prisoner again—but this time with a woman who treated her badly. She decided that if her mother cared she would stop doing her second job. If she cared she would tell her that there was no amount of money more important than her.

Jalissa stood there indecisively watching her cousin begin the long walk up to Garden Hilltop. Eventually she huffed and just went home.

Vanessa’s mind was in deep thought, so much so that she had nearly passed ‘the building’ before she had to remind herself that she was supposed to be scared. When she got home, she went straight to the back yard where she climbed in through the kitchen window just as Scotty had taught her.

She picked up the phone to tell Jalissa that she was okay but Aunt Callista answered, using her sweet telephone voice…at least until she discovered that her caller was her missing niece.

“Vanessa, you need to get your ass back down here, now!”