Trap House (12 page)

The usually short drive home seemed to take only a few seconds. Tiffany still hadn’t come up
with a plausible explanation of the day’s events. Unable to come up with anything, she decided to
wing it when she got there.

Tiffany was dismayed to see that her parents were waiting for her in the front room. It was a
room rarely used, if ever, but it prevented her from slipping past. “Hey, Mama, Daddy,” she said
meekly to her grim-faced parents.

“Have a seat, young lady,” her father said stoically.

Tiffany looked to her mother for support but got none; she averted her eyes.

“Well, Mrs. Lovejoy called us,” her father said, his statement sounding more like a question.

Oddly, Tiffany felt more irritation than fear. She hadn’t had a blast since early that morning, and
father or not, the dude was questioning her.

“Well?” he asked, frustrated by her silence. “You wanna tell us what happened?”

“Calm down, Will,” Tiffany’s mom said, patting her husband’s leg.

“It’s all a big misunderstanding,” Tiffany began, figuring she’d adlib as she went along.

“That’s what I thought,” her mom chimed in, eager for the whole sordid mess to be easy to
explain away. “It was that girl, wasn’t it? The one with the drugs?”

“Uh huh. It was, Mama. It was that girl!” Tiffany said excitedly, happy her mother had come
through with an excuse.

Her father sighed loudly as his wife began doing exactly what she had promised not to do.
“Tiffany, go up to your room so your mother and I can talk for a minute,” he said, exasperated.

“Okay, Daddy,” she replied, rising to her feet. Before leaving the room, Tiffany ran over and
hugged her mother’s neck. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she said, cementing her support.

Tiffany’s parents began debating as to how to deal with the situation, even before she got out
of the room.

She hit the stairs two at a time to make the most of the time she had.
Surely I got time for a quick
blast
. She was long overdue and definitely deserved one after all she’d been through that day. She
started to open the window and hang her head out like she used to do when she was just smoking
weed. Then she remembered how the smoke would still come in, and she quickly abandoned the
idea. Tiffany then decided she would just smoke in her bathroom, using the steam from the shower
to mask the odor. In her haste, she forgot to lock her bedroom or bathroom door. She smiled,
pleased with her cleverness as she turned on the vent and climbed on the toilet to blow the smoke
in. One pull told her Wanda had packed the blunt to the gills. It sizzled loudly with each hearty pull
she took. With each pull, Tiffany agreed to out the blunt, but every pull led to another. She was so
caught up listening to the crack crackle that she didn’t hear her parents enter her room.

Her father finally got her mother to agree not to stick up for her and force her to explain
herself.

“She’s in the shower. Poor thing’s had a rough day. We should wait till morning, Will,” Tiffany’s
mother whispered.

“Mary, please!” her father shot back, irritated at the attempt to let the girl off the hook again.

“Okay, okay!” she agreed. “I’ll stick my head in and tell her to come to our room when she
gets out.” She neared the bathroom. “Oh my!” Tiffany’s mother gasped, stumbling away from the
door.

“What?” her father asked, rushing to investigate.

She was too astonished to speak, just pointing to the bathroom door.

Will pushed the door open, expecting the worst—and that was exactly what he got.

Tiffany was perched precariously atop the toilet, feverishly sucking on the cigar. She choked
harshly when she finally saw her shocked parents. “Don’t you people fucking knock!?” she
screamed between coughs.

“Is that marijuana?” her naïve mother asked.

“That’s freebase!” her father exclaimed, using the terminology of his era.

“Freebase?” Mary asked, still confused. “You mean…like Richard Pryor?”

“Richard Pryor, Bobby, and Whitney, O.D.B.!” Tiffany screamed, furious at the interruption.
She took another pull as she climbed down, then outed the blunt on her sink.

Both of her parents were in absolute shock, speechless, staring at the stranger wearing their
child’s body.

“Fuck wrong with y’all?” Tiffany asked nonchalantly. “No big thang. I get high erry now and
then.”

“Not in MY house you won’t!” her father boomed indignantly.

“YOUR house?” Tiffany chuckled. “Nigga, dis OUR house.”

“Tiffany!” her mother screamed. “What has gotten into you!? Apologize this instant!”

“What?” Tiffany yelled back. “Apologize for what? This nigga don’t run shit ‘round here.”

Her father rushed over and grabbed Tiffany by both shoulders, desperately searching her face
for his daughter.

“Get the fuck off me, nigga,” she spat, pulling out of his grasp.

Before he could stop it, his open palm shot up and collided with the side of her face. The sound
of the slap seemed to stop time as it reverberated in the room.

They all stood for several seconds in total silence until Tiffany finally spoke up. “You ever
touch me again, muhfucka, Ima kill you,” Tiffany spat with an evil smirk.

Her father moved forward to see if she could keep her word, but he was stopped by his wife.

“No, Will. Please!” she begged as she struggled to restrain the man.

“Hold up, Mary. I’m tryina see what she talking about,” he replied, trying to get around her.

“Let him go!” Tiffany challenged. “Come on, nigga.”

“I want you out my house now,” her father said calmly.

“You ain’t saying nothing,” Tiffany taunted.

“If you ain’t gone in twenty minutes, Ima toss your little ass out on your head,” he replied
before turning on his heels and leaving the room.

Mary turned her head back and forth from her husband to her daughter, desperately torn as to
who to defend. “Don’t you move,” she demanded as firmly as she could before rushing out to her
husband.

As soon as her mother left the room, Tiffany began stuffing clothes in her bag. She gathered as
much as she could with one hand, the precious blunt still tightly clutched in the other.

Mary got nowhere with her husband and returned to talk some sense into her daughter. But
when she got back to Tiffany’s room, she found it empty.

* * *

Once inside her car, Tiffany debated what to do and where to go. Carlos was the first person she
thought to seek refuge with, but his girlfriend’s car in the driveway killed that idea.

Her phone vibrated in her purse as she slowly pulled down her street. A quick check of the caller
ID made up her mind as to her destination. “Hey, Wanda,” Tiffany answered, sounding as pitiful
as she could.

“Girl, you okay?” Wanda asked, as if she was really concerned. “I was calling to see how you
made out with your mama and daddy.”

“They put me out. I don’t know where Ima go,” Tiffany replied, already heading toward Wanda’s
house.

“Come on over here, girl. You know I got yo’ back,” Wanda offered.

“You sure?” Tiffany asked rhetorically.

“Yeah, girl, come on. Ima have one rolled up when you get here,” Wanda said.

It was then that Tiffany realized she was still clutching the blunt in her head with a death grip.
Not intending to share it, she tucked it away in the glove box for safekeeping.

* * *

The guest room in Wanda’s house was roughly the same size as the one Tiffany left behind. It
contained a brass daybed, a small dresser, and its own bathroom. Tiffany set her bags down and
went to join Wanda in the front room.

“Girl, you just in time,” Wanda exclaimed, holding up a tightly rolled blunt.

Tiffany watched in awe as Wanda lit it and inhaled deeply. Again, Tiffany inhaled with her.

“You…o…kay…gurl?” Wanda inquired in between gulps of air.

“No,” Tiffany whined. “I’m a mess—homeless, jobless, broke. I don’t know what Ima do.”

“You know you can come down to da club,” Wanda said, passing the blunt.

“I ain’t ready for that,” Tiffany admitted before hitting the blunt with gusto.

Wanda peeped the greedy pull and knew the girl would soon be open for anything. That, of
course, would be to her benefit, and a plan crept into her mind. “I got your back. You can stay here
as long as you need to, but you’ll need some income. Yer gon’ have to help out,” she announced.

“I guess I hafta find another job,” Tiffany sighed.

“A job!?” Wanda exclaimed with a chuckle. “Girl, a job ain’t nothing but work, and I can’t be
waiting on you to get no check.”

“What else can I do? I can’t dance,” Tiffany said in the same whiney tone that was beginning
to annoy Wanda.

Wanda knew she had her hook, line, and sinker, but she was moving too fast. She decided to
pull back a little and turn her out slowly. “I’ll tell you what…” Wanda began in a more sympathetic
tone. “Mike is coming over in a little while. Ima see if he got anything else you can do.” She knew
just getting the young girl inside the club was half the battle.
This is the other half
, Wanda mused to
herself as she passed the cocaine-filled blunt.

“As long as I can keep my clothes on. I aint’ no ho,” Tiffany said before taking a big pull.

Wanda flinched slightly at the insult but said nothing. She knew full well that she was a ho
and much worse, but she didn’t like being called one. “Gurrl, if you did dance, you would make a
killin’! You way finer than most dem chicks at the club,” Wanda said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, right.” Tiffany giggled, blushing unseen under her dark skin.

“Fo’ real, gurl. Dem hoes got bullet holes and stab wounds,” Wanda joked.

In fact, Club Chocolate had the baddest dancers in the ATL, most of them turned out by Wanda
herself. All of them had been personally sampled by Mike—some even by Wanda.

“Come on. Lemme see what ya got,” Wanda said, hitting a button on the remote control. “Whose
Pussy” by rapper D-lite boomed through the Bose speakers as Wanda rose to her feet. “Come on!
I’m finna show you some moves,” she told a giggling Tiffany, pulling her up by the hands.

Tiffany was high as a barrel of oil and got into the vibe. She began dancing all the latest dances
as Wanda watched.

“Hold up,” Wanda announced and bolted from the room.

Tiffany was feeling the song’s heavy bass line and kept on dancing.

Wanda returned in a flash with a large tote bag in hand. “Come on and find something in your
size,” she said, dumping out an assortment of lingerie.