The Blackbirds (22 page)

At 8:00
P.M
., in Destiny Jones mode, I arrived at FedEx in El Segundo.

I was scheduled to work until midnight. That was how I spent most Friday nights, driving tugs and loading containers filled with packages onto planes. I felt safer having an excuse not to be out in public, at a club, any place I might be recognized, or confronted, or ridiculed.

I almost only hung out when I was with the Blackbirds. I felt safe with my girls.

Not everyone reacted to me the way Leonard Dubois Jr. had, and even now I wasn't sure what to make of the way he had responded to our sudden reunion. People were two-faced.

My cellular was inside my leather jacket, so when it vibrated I felt it against my chest. It was a message from Hakeem. I became that giggly version of me, a part of me I had no idea still existed. With him I felt like who I would have been if not for that one night in my life. My smile was broad because I imagined us hooking up later tonight, after I had met with the Blackbirds for our ritualistic birthday celebration to raise our glasses to Kwanzaa.

The smile I owned was repossessed as soon as I read his message.

His text had two words, and seeing those words terrified me.

His text was in all caps, screaming, and it read:
DESTINY JONES?

The world stopped.

My heartbeat sped up, loudened, rested between my ears.

The next message included two photos. One image was of me, as a teen, and one of me now. He had disregarded my wishes and
photographed me while I slept. It was an image of me from my face to my breasts, an areola showing. It shocked me that he had done that. That pissed me off. I felt violated all over again. I forgot how to breathe. My brain expanded, squeezed against my skull.

YOU CREPT A PHOTO OF ME WHILE I WAS NAKED AND SLEEPING ON TOP OF THE COVERS?

ARE YOU DESTINY JONES?

I NEED YOU TO DELETE THAT PHOTO AND ANY OTHER PHOTO OF ME YOU TOOK.

ARE YOU DESTINY JONES?

WHY WOULD YOU DO WHAT I UNEQUIVOCALLY TOLD YOU NOT TO DO?

ARE YOU DESTINY JONES? YES OR NO.

I had known that his finding out was as inevitable as rain in Seattle.

I thought of all the things I could say, thought of pointless lies I could tell.

Chest rising and falling, agony in my eyes, I typed back one word.

YES.

Then I waited for his next message. There was no next message.

I dialed his number twenty times in a row, each time it rang and went to voicemail.

WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER? DON'T DO THIS. YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT BEING PHOTOGRAPHED. YOU TOOK A PHOTO OF ME NAKED. I CAN SEE MY BREASTS AND MY FACE.

I waited on another reply.

WILL YOU PLEASE DELETE THAT PHOTO AND ANY OTHER YOU MAY HAVE TAKEN?

It was a reply that would not come.

I couldn't send any more texts. My words could be put on social media.

I'd just sent the man a text and told him I would swallow his seeds. I told him I would do anal. All of that could be taken out of the context of the relationship. No black woman could ever do half of what a famous Kardashian had done and be respected. It was hard enough to be private in a public world, was impossible to keep most of your business to yourself.

I called Hakeem over and over. My anger went straight to voicemail each time.

A larger fear erupted.

Once again, I was damaged goods.

Fear rose as tears fell.

That night, an hour after leaving the Club on Sunset Boulevard, Kwanzaa had followed the man who wore Hugo Boss into the heart of Southern California, beyond its miles of shopping alleys, beyond the Staples Center and the Lakers, beyond the nightlife at L.A. Live, to the gentrified Arts District off Fourth Street in Downtown L.A. She was on the numbered streets. It was a zip code where career homeless, discarded veterans, and mentally ill lived rent-free, but now most of the vagrants in certain areas had been removed, pushed a few blocks this way or a half mile that way to make room for tattooed hipsters who craved to live within a thousand steps of a Trader Joe's, Coffee Bean, and dozens of restaurants that served gluten-free meals.

During the day, with all the kids taking acting, dancing, and singing classes in the area, despite homeless encampments being on every vein leading into downtown, most of the areas looked hipster-family friendly. At night it looked like the corner of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Kwanzaa Browne parked on the street. She saw movement in the shadows as Hugo Boss parked and came to her car. She got out with his assistance, still looking toward the shadows, knowing this part of L.A. was close to the bridge that led to Boyle Heights and Latin gangs. Still no words as she adjusted her dress and nervously followed him. He didn't hold her hand. She just followed him, stayed a step behind him, let him be her shield from trouble.

People came out of the shadows. Women. The women hurried toward them from four locations, heels clacking like tap dancers. She
counted eight women. They all stopped in front of him. High heels, beautiful short dresses, beautiful long dresses, business suits, tight jeans, white shorts, and one sporting a hijab. All looked like librarians, engineers, dancers, politicians, fashion activists, models, or attorneys. They appeared to be professional women between the ages of barely legal to the age of cougars, all in search of a good time at midnight. The Friday-night collective had waited, and now was surprised to see he wasn't alone. None turned away. In silence, they offered themselves to him. He shook his head and reached for Kwanzaa. She gave him her hand, trembling as her eyes moved from woman to woman. It was like seeing delegates from Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States.

Their expressions begged to be chosen.

Kwanzaa had assumed the women were prostitutes.

They weren't.

She realized they were women Hugo Boss had been with before.

He shook his head.

The international lot of women turned away, anger in the way their hips moved, disappointment and envy in the way their heels clicked against the street. The scents from their perfume followed.

They reluctantly went to their cars.

Kwanzaa didn't understand. The moment had been tense, but esoteric, something only Hugo Boss and the gaggle of women comprehended. Hugo Boss stood for a moment, and as the scents from eight perfumes faded, inhaled the staleness of the nipple-hardening night. He looked left and right, unfettered, as if this type of attention was normal in his life. No one else waited in the darkness of the converted warehouses.

The octet, the G8 of women, was gone, and already that moment felt like a dream. Eight women were a lot of red flags, but Kwanzaa didn't question his policy. If eight women were in a queue, what he was putting down had to be good. It had to be spectacular. It had to be Magic Mountain, Disneyland, and Pornhub rolled into one. No one wanted to eat at the restaurant that had the empty parking lot. And this metaphorical parking lot had been filled with repeat customers. Repeat customers
were the foundation of all businesses. When loving was good, everybody wanted a repeat.

But Hugo Boss had chosen Forever 21, had sent the other women to sulk in their tears.

Kwanzaa loved the idea of being the chosen one by the most handsome of the handsome. She wished Marcus Brixton and that contaminated Chilean bitch could see her now.

Tipsy, moving like she was in a dream, she followed Hugo Boss to the wrought-iron door of a three-level brick warehouse. He had led her to a private entrance. The stranger who would soon be her lover used a key, entered, disabled an alarm, and then turned on the recessed lights.

After Indigo left her parents' home, she sped by AT&T to purchase two telephones. With much on her mind, feeling her mother's angst, she white-lined traffic to her father's office in Sherman Oaks on Ventura Boulevard.

She told him she was in the area, talked to him for ten minutes, then lied and said she had left her cellular at the family house when she was with her mother and asked to use his. She walked away, went to the ladies' room, called her mother, told her that Operation Creep Dad's Information was in progress, and fifteen minutes later she gave her father his phone back. Too much on her mind, she kissed her dad good-bye, took to the freeways. She hated lying to her father, but she hated for her mother to be in pain. She was afraid of what she would find on her father's phone. Stressed, she really needed to work out to clear her head.

Coughing, nose stuffy, she was finally en route to the Culver City stairs.

Indigo cruised by Cameo Woods apartments and saw a Honda pulled over, slanting to one side. The car's emergency lights were flashing and a sister was standing next to the car, her face a ball of fear, anger, and fret. Indigo didn't know if she was from America, the islands, Dominica, Haiti, Central or South America, or from the heart of the Motherland, but the girl was her sister no matter where she was born. Indigo slowed down, downshifted. She saw the girl was about twenty, hair in a tree-size Afro that bounced with the dry breeze, tall, dark, and sexy.

The coffee-hued mademoiselle stood with her arms folded, jaw tight,
face etched in anger. The car's front tire was flatter than the middle of Texas. Indigo wouldn't want one of her Blackbirds stuck on the side of the road. Wouldn't want her mother stranded. Would appreciate if someone stopped to help her dad. She made a U, then passed the girl as the girl gazed at her, nodded at the girl, didn't see anyone else in her car, saw nothing suspicious, then made a U again. Indigo pulled up behind the girl's car, stopped two car lengths back, and put her CBR's emergency lights on, so traffic would see them ahead of time.

Indigo removed her bikers' gloves, undid her chinstrap, and removed her pink helmet. Her red hair was braided toward her neck, and there was a stocking cap on her braids to keep the helmet from pulling the roots. As her boots crunched across grit in the road, she pulled the stocking cap off, then tugged tissues out of her pocket, blew her nose for the hundredth time since yesterday, became a litterbug and tossed the sullied tissues. She felt ill, like she had the flu, but she'd never let being sick slow her down. She planned on sweating the virus out of her body.

Sinuses still stuffed, Indigo asked, “You okay? Someone coming to help?”

The girl wore stacked Jones Katami jewelry, handmade bracelets made of natural stone beads, vintage charms, and other random objects to create uniqueness.

With unhidden frustration the girl said, “I have a damn flat.”

“Obviously. Have you called Triple-A?”

“I don't have Triple-A.”

“What are your plans?”

“I don't know what to do. Can I drive it like this until I get to Venice Beach?”

“That is not advisable. Your tire is mangled. How far have you driven with it like that?”

“It got real bad when I was on the other side of La Brea.”

“That's a little over a mile. Couldn't you tell you were already down to the rim? The tire is destroyed.”

“Started to smell like the car was on fire, and the car wouldn't go more than a couple miles an hour after a while, so I gave up and stopped,
got out, and hoped I was cute enough to get some man to stop and help me out. Glad I have on nice clothes and had just done my face.”

“You look nice. Everything head to toe is on fleek.”

“Thanks. You look pretty hot on that motorcycle.”

Indigo coughed. “Do you have a spare tire and a jack?”

“I don't know. Where would those be?”

“Open your trunk. That is where they usually play hide-n-seek.”

“You've learned how to change a flat?”

“Had no choice. My father wouldn't let me drive a car until I knew how to change a flat, change the oil, put air in the tires, put in antifreeze, change the battery, the whole shooting match.”

“That's evil.”

“Well, those skills have come in handy more times than I can remember.”

Indigo coughed again, and checked the doughnut, made sure it was usable and not busted. She loosened the lug nuts, jacked up the car, took off the lug nuts, pulled the flat off and rolled it to the side, put the anorexic spare on, screwed on the lug nuts, let the car back down, tightened the lug nuts, and had the flat sitting in the trunk of the girl's car in ten minutes.

The girl grabbed her purse from the car and asked, “How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing. Pay it forward.”

“You're coughing like you need a little help getting well. What's your name?”

“Indigo Abdulrahaman.”

“Wow. That's an amazing name. Pardon me if I don't try and repeat the last part. I'm Rickie Sue Walker. Indigo, are you sure there is no way I can thank you for saving me?”

“Actually, do you have any tissues? This bug is worsening.”

The girl reached in her car, pulled out coarse napkins from El Pollo Loco.

Indigo stepped to the side and blew her nose again. It felt like her brain was stuffed with cotton. Indigo pushed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, then pressed a finger between her eyebrows. Did that for
twenty seconds and hoped that would help clear her stuffed nose. Didn't work. Coughing, Indigo headed back to her motorcycle. Rickie Sue followed, jogged after her, calling Indigo's name. Indigo stopped at her CBR, turned, faced the girl's telling smile.

“Indigo, I could make chicken soup and rub Vicks on the bottom of your feet.”

“I was just paying it forward, not in search of a Florence Nightingale.”

“Sit in my car with me and chat awhile. Let's get to know each other.”

“
Ori e o pe
. Unless you have a
penis
 . . . Look, you are a woman, and I am a woman, and my preference is Nigerian
men,
therefore there is
nothing
you can do for me. You offend me.”

Without a good-bye, Indigo shook her head and sped away. But she turned around, pulled back up to the girl's car. The girl was inside. She let the window down, her face now nervous.

Face shield flipped up, Indigo killed her engine, then said, “I am
not
a bloody lesbian.”

“I understand. Didn't mean to offend. Your accent and sexiness caught me off guard.”

“I just wanted to be clear that I only stopped to
help
you, not hit on you.”

They stared at each other, the CBR resting, rumbling between Indigo's thighs.

Rickie whispered, “Where is your bae, Indigo? Girl as fine as you has to have a bae.”

“Probably somewhere being disrespectful with someone not quite as sexy.”

“Your man should be nursing you back to health.”

“I'm really getting tired of his nonsense.”

Rickie Sue bit her bottom lip. “I make a real good chicken soup.”

Indigo coughed a half dozen times, then looked toward the Culver City Stairs.

Rickie Sue whispered, “Homemade soup. And anything else you need to feel better.”