Miss Janet smiled. “Good. You gonna bring Maleka, right?”
Travis answered Miss Janet before I could.
“Yeah, Maleka will be there. And I hope you don’t mind if I come, too? I’d like to pay my respects to your mother. I know how much she meant to Stephanie.”
Miss Janet hesitated, but she looked like she was about to agree when I cut in.
“No, Travis. You stay here with T. J.”
“Why?” He took his arm from around my shoulder and frowned at me.
“ ’Cause Nana is Malek’s grandmother, and you two don’t get along. They were very close, and this is gonna be hard enough on him as it is. Things will only be worse if you’re there. You understand, don’t you, boo?”
I knew I was taking a big chance asking him to stay home, but I figured he wouldn’t protest, at least while Miss Janet was there. Sure, we might have an argument about this later, but I had to keep Travis away. I knew why he wanted to be there, and I didn’t blame him for wanting to keep an eye on Malek. But I also knew that if Malek was upset enough, who knew what would come out of his mouth? Shit was already crazy enough between me and Malek. I did not need a scene at Nana’s funeral. I would go and pay my respects, then finally be done with Malek. It was time to get myself back on the straight and narrow.
26
Jasmine
Our apartment was hooked up with streamers and party favors. Sabrina, Becky, and I had spent all day decorating it in Derrick’s favorite colors, red and white. This was really gonna be a party to remember. I had spent over five hundred dollars on food and drink, and had gotten Derrick’s friend Devin to DJ so nobody could complain about the music. I was proud of the job we had done. It all paid off, too. When Derrick walked through the door with his buddies, he was surprised as hell. I’ll never forget the way he kissed me and announced to everyone how much he loved me. I thought for sure that was the start of a beautiful evening, but it turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare.
Originally, I had planned on a small surprise party a week after Derrick’s release from prison. Except for sex, things were going so well between us, I just thought he deserved it. I thought a couple of his closest friends and family for dinner would be nice. Kinda like what my family does on Sundays. But after I asked his mother to make a few calls and invite some of the family, things got out of hand. She gave me a list of over forty people. She musta called everyone she knew, from the car dealer to the drug dealer. And before I knew it, I had over fifty people in my apartment, all of them hungry and wanting to get drunk.
Even that would’ve been cool if they all acted civilized, but those fools were the most triflin’, ghettofied people I’d ever met. To start with, Derrick’s Aunt Jean and Uncle Roy tried to rob us blind. I caught them filling up a shopping bag with all the meat from our freezer. I grabbed that damn bag out of Roy’s hand and headed straight for Derrick’s mother, who invited their low-rent asses in the first place. I wasn’t trying to make a scene at Derrick’s party or anything, but I wanted those two out of my house. Would you believe that woman sucked her teeth and told me if her brother and sister-in-law had to leave, she was leaving too? You should have seen the attitude she gave me. She turned her back on me and marched right over to Derrick like he was supposed to be mad with me or something. Well, believe it or not, that woman knew her son, ’cause next thing I knew, Derrick was glaring at me like I’d beat his sister. He came over, grabbed my hand, and led me upstairs. I could hear his mother, uncle, and aunt all laughing and slapping each other five as we walked up the stairs.
My stomach was in knots when Derrick got to the top of the stairs and turned to speak. I knew I had to keep myself under control, ‘cause right before he went to prison I said something smart about his mother and he locked me in the closet for an hour. Don’t get the wrong idea; I deserved it. When you call your man’s mother a piece-of-shit project whore, you should expect a beat-down. I got off easy bein’ locked in the closet. At least he didn’t lay his hands on me.
“Thanks.” He gave me a gentle kiss.
“You’re not mad?” I was amazed.
“No.” He kissed me again. “Mama’s just tryin’ to start some trouble, and Uncle Roy and Aunt Jean think we rich ’cause we don’t stay in the projects. Let them have the meat, baby. I’ll go grocery shopping in the morning.” He kissed me again and left me with my jaw hanging. He turned to speak again when he was halfway down the stairs. “Oh, baby, you did a great job with the party. Thanks.”
So I thought I was through with the drama for the night. That is, until I heard noises coming from my guest bedroom. Now, I know I wasn’t throwin’ no kind of party where I expected some nasty-ass people to be doin’ their business on
my
clean sheets. I wasn’t havin’ that. And I didn’t give a damn about no one’s privacy, so I barged into the room. The view was more than I’d bargained for. There was Derrick’s sixteen-year-old sister, Vicki, butt-naked with a teenage boy trying his best to split her in two. The two of them looked like they were going to die when they saw me. Vicki was pleading and crying as she scrambled to put her clothes on.
“Please, Aunt Jasmine, don’t tell Mommy or Derrick. Please!”
Out of everyone in Derrick’s family, I liked Vicki the most. Probably ’cause she gave me respect when the two of us had traveled together upstate on occasion to visit Derrick in prison. Plus, Vicki had always sent a few dollars from her McDonald’s job to Derrick’s commissary each month, which is more than his own mother ever did. So I was definitely leaning toward not telling her mother. Telling Derrick was a different story. Derrick was my man, and the last thing I wanted to do was lie to him. If I lied to him about this and he found out later, he’d wanna kill me. He was so proud of Vicki, who he thought was still a virgin. She was the first woman in his family not to get pregnant before graduating high school. Derrick was hoping that she might be able to attend college and really make something outta herself.
I watched Vicki as she sat on the bed and put on her shoes. The guy she was with had bolted as soon as his pants were up from his ankles. That just proved that he wasn’t about shit. How these young girls get hooked up with these half-ass men, I just don’t know.
“Okay,” I finally told her. “This is what I’m gonna do. I’m not going to say anything to your mother or Derrick. But if Derrick asks me anything, I’m tellin’ the truth.”
I thought Vicki would go through the ceiling, she jumped so high. She threw her arms around my neck in a grateful hug.
“Thank you, Aunt Jasmine. Thank you so much!”
“Give me the condom and the wrapper. The last thing we need is your brother finding a used rubber lying around. Then we’d both be in deep shit.”
I knelt down to search for the wrapper under the bed, until I realized Vicki had not moved. She just sat there with this dumb-ass, blank stare.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t use a condom.”
Her answer was silence.
“Damn, Vicki! What the fuck is wrong with you?” I spent the next half hour trying to explain the importance of birth control and disease prevention. I’m not sure if it did any good, but at least it made me feel a little useful. Not to mention the fact that it gave me a chance to be away from Derrick’s pain-in-the-ass mother.
When I finally got back to the party, things had thinned out a bit. Derrick’s mother and his older relatives had left with most of the food from the dining room, which really wasn’t a problem for me. I didn’t want to clean up all that shit anyway. Besides, I had much bigger problems than Derrick’s family. Right in front of my eyes, standing in my living room, drinking my liquor, talking to my man, was Wendy. I ain’t gonna lie. I was about to kick that bitch’s ass. Derrick must’ve seen the look in my eye. He hauled ass over to me and dragged me into the kitchen.
“What’s that bitch doing in my house, Derrick? I want that bitch out my house!”
“Look, baby. I know you don’t like Wendy, but my mom asked her to come over. Besides, she ain’t hurtin’ nobody. Why you gotta be so paranoid? Stop trippin’.”
“Your mother ain’t even here! Get that bitch out my housel”
Derrick raised an eyebrow. I hated when he did that, because it usually meant he was about to give me an ultimatum.
“Okay. Ah’ight, check this out. If Wendy has to leave, I’m leaving, too.”
He looked at me like I should care. I did, but I sure as hell didn’t intend to show it. He could leave with her if he wanted. I’ll tell you what, though, that bitch Wendy was not about to leave my house with my man without an ass-whipping.
“Well, then, get to steppin’,” I challenged.
“Ah’ight.” He grabbed my hand and dragged me into the living room, where he pulled the plug on the DJ’s equipment.
“Excuse me, everybody. The party’s over.”
“Yo! Dee, man. What up with that? I just got here!” a man said from the crowd.
“Yeah, it ain’t even eleven o’clock!” another angry voice called out.
“Look, y’all, I wanna party just as much as you. But my old lady doesn’t like the company I keep. She wants me to kick a few of y’all outta here. But y‘all my peeps, so I told her if my peeps gotta go, so do I. So since the party was for me and I’m leavin’, the party’s over.”
I had never been so embarrassed in my entire life. The last thing I expected was for Derrick to do something like this. All I wanted was for him to stop disrespectin’ me with his baby’s bitch-ass momma, and he had blown the whole thing out of proportion. Every eye in that room was on me and there was no escape, ’cause Derrick had his hand on my arm in a vise grip.
“Cut it out, Derrick. Can’t you see you’re embarrassing me?” I was talking through clenched teeth.
“This is what you want, ain’t it, baby?” he whispered.
“Of course not. I just want that bitch out of my house.”
“Well she’s out, and so am I. For good. Either you trust me or you don’t. I’m not gonna play these games with you, Jazz.”
His tone was dead serious, and I was scared. The last thing I wanted him to do was walk out of my life right after I’d finally gotten him back. Reluctantly I decided to put my own pride aside and keep my man. Big Momma always told me to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, so I was about to take her advice.
“Don’t do this, Derrick. She can stay.” I was about to cry.
“You sure?” He wrapped his arms around me when I nodded. “Now, that’s my girl.”
“Hey, y’all. I was just playin’,”he laughed. “The party’s still on. My lady loves all my peeps. Don’t you, boo?”
I nodded weakly, but it wasn’t like any of these triflin’ folks even cared what I thought of them. When Derrick said the party was back on, they just plugged the DJ back in and went back to partying. I pushed Derrick away and walked to the bar, pouring a straight glass of something brown. I tilted my head back and let the liquid slide down my throat, burning so much I almost gagged. I didn’t give a fuck, though. I just wanted to get drunk as fast as I could. This whole damn night had been enough to damn near drive me crazy. And for the first time this week, I missed Dylan. I missed him a lot.
“Wake up, Derrick wants you outside.”
It was almost midnight when Malcolm, one of Derrick’s teenaged drug-dealing friends, woke me from my drunken nap on the sofa. It took me a while to come to my senses, but after a few seconds I realized where I was at. There were still plenty of people in the house and the music was blasting, but everyone seemed to be congregating at the front door.
“Derrick wants you outside.” Malcolm repeated.
“For what?” I rubbed my eyes as I tried to stand. I was still drunk and my knees gave out, so I plopped back down on the sofa. “What’s everybody doing at my front door? Y’all better not have the police at my house.” I gathered my strength, got up from the sofa, and pushed my way through the crowd. What I saw at the other end of the door made me scream. Dylan was on the ground, being held down by three of Derrick’s friends. He was barely moving, and blood was coming from his nose and mouth. Derrick was standing over him with his foot on Dylan’s throat. He looked like he was gonna kill him.
“Jasmine ... help ... me. Get him ... off me.” I could barely hear him between gasps for breath.
“Stop it, Derrick!” I shouted.
Derrick turned to me and glared. “You know this nigga?”
My eyes roamed to Dylan, then back to Derrick. I didn’t say a word. I was afraid of what Derrick might do if he didn’t like my answer. I didn’t want to see Dylan hurt even more than he was. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.
“I asked you a question, Jasmine,” Derrick repeated. “Do you know him?”
I tried to avoid his glaring eyes, but eventually we made eye contact. And during that split second, I’m sure he could read my mind. His eyes became small and he pushed down on Dylan’s throat. I was frozen with terror. He knew about me and Dylan; that much looked certain. Thank God Sabrina was there to save Dylan—and rescue me.
“Yeah, she knows him.” She shoved her way to the front of the crowd. “He’s my boyfriend. Now get the fuck off him unless you plan on going back upstate.”