Secrets of a Side Bitch 2 (10 page)

My eyes
were glued on the playoff games while I stuffed my face with sausage and pepperoni pizza. In my right hand was a Corona that helped wash it down. Simone sat beside me with her hand on my thigh talking my ear off about baby this and baby that.

I heard her ask, “What do you think we should name it if it
’s a girl?”

She didn
’t understand that a conversation like this was hella hard for me. I had just had these conversations with the love of my life a few months ago, and now she was dead. This shit was uncomfortable for me while it was heaven on earth for Simone.

But
I tried to be supportive anyway, while my eyes stayed glued on the game. “I don’t know, baby. What you think?”

She rambled off names into my e
ar, but the sounds of jump shots, whistles being blown and my thoughts drowned her out. I was thinking about Ching and wondering when he would put two and two together that it was me and Capone hitting up his spots. We’d just hit another one that morning. Surprisingly, it was empty without a block boy on post. We stuck that nigga for three hundred thousand dollars worth of coke, pills, and mollies in street money. It was easier stealing from Ching than coping from the connect. Both of my spots were cracking, and my stash spots were over flowing with extra cash.

“Now, if it
’s a boy, I want to name him after his daddy,” I heard Simone say before she kissed me on the cheek.

I smiled and nodded.

“Gawd damn right,” I said with my eyes still on Dwayne Wade. Out of my peripheral, I saw Simone’s iPhone light up as if it were ringing but the ringer was on silent. She looked at the phone and put it down as she tried to hide some irritation. She had been doing that a lot lately; ignoring calls and leaving her ringer on silent.

But
my phone rang before I could bring that up. It was Tiana, so I answered, despite missing a layup by Lebron that was going to tie the game if it went in. “What’s up, Ti…”

“Omari, you gotta come home!”

I heard the terror in her voice. There was a sense of panic in her voice that was all too familiar.

I jumped up recognizing the horror
.

“What
’s wrong?!”

I couldn
’t hear Tiana over her tears and Simone’s constant questions. “Omari, what’s wrong?! Where are you going?!”

I was already walking away from the table though. I was on my way out of Beggars as I heard Tiana say, “Dahlia isn
’t breathing! I came in to check on her and she wasn’t breathing! Oh my God!”

“Did you call 9-1-1
?!”

“Yes! I hear them coming down the block now! Hurry up, please!”

I ran to my car, not even checking to see if Simone was behind me. Luckily, when I was opening the driver’s side door, Simone was almost at the car also. She was looking at me like I was crazy and confused.

“Dahlia isn
’t breathing,” was all I could say as I hopped in the car. I sped off before Simone could even close the door, leaving her car behind.

Twenty minutes.

I drove ninety miles an hour, running red lights and taking shortcuts, but it still took me twenty minutes to get from Harvey to Simone
’s condo.

Twenty minutes
.

Twenty minutes was all it took for the paramedics to get there, attempt to resuscitate Dahlia
, and pronounce her dead. As I ran up to the building, I spotted police officers and cars. The eerily familiar scene made my heart pound and my head spin. I tried to hold it together as I ran inside of the building. Neighbors stood in the hallways trying to see what was going on. The front door of Simone’s condo was wide open. Paramedics, police officers, and detectives were standing around the kitchen. Tiana sat at the table with tears streaming down her face as some nigga stood behind her with his hand on her back and in his socks and wife beater, as if he’d been in this motherfucker comfortably for quite some time.

Tiana
’s signature huge lashes were gone. Her makeup looked clownish as it smeared all over her eyes.

“Where is she?”

Tiana looked scared to even answer me. When our eyes met, she buried her face in her hands and started to bawl uncontrollably. A female officer standing behind her comforted her as another officer led me and Simone into the baby’s room.

And
there she was. There was my angel lying there so peacefully and beautifully. She looked asleep. She looked alive and like, if I touched her, she would react to Daddy’s touch like she always did. But she didn’t. I touched her. When I felt the change in her skin, the coldness of it, I lost it.

Simone
threw her arms around me, and I buried my face into her shoulder.

“It was more than likely
SIDS,” I heard someone say.

I couldn
’t even react. I was paralyzed with pain. Besides being my baby, Dahlia was all of Aeysha that I had left.

“Son, son…” I could hear the officer calling me, trying to calm me down so that he could talk to me. “I just have a few questions
, and then we can get out of your hair and let you grieve.”

“Omari, come on, baby. You need to answer his questions. You can do this.”

Just like when Aeysha passed, Simone was there for me; holding my hand and wiping my tears, even though she had tears of her own.

I saw the body bag that one of the paramedics tried to hide
behind her back. It was so little and tiny. Just the sight of it ignited the pain in my heart all over again. She looked at the anguish in my eyes and her heart went out to me.

They let me say my goodbyes
before I left the room to talk to the officer. They let me pick her up and hold her. I sat in the rocking chair near the window and held her, kissing her cold face over and over again, until they had to pry her out of my arms.

As I handed her to the paramedic, Simone gave her a quick kiss
as well.

Then Simone and I followed the officer out of the room. I noticed that the paramedics closed the door behind us. I tried talking myself
off of the edge of the cliff. I told myself not to jump. I tried hard not to go back to that dark place where I was after Aeysha was killed,  a dark place that I had only managed to escape from just a little bit, a dark place that I went back to visit every now and then.

I held Simone
’s hand and barely listened to the police officer.

“I couldn
’t help but notice some bruises on Dahlia. Though it’s most likely SIDS, we’re going to do an autopsy to verify that.” Then the officer lowered his voice, “Do you think anyone was abusing Dahlia? The babysitter? Her boyfriend? Is he around the baby often?”

My heart was racing. Anxiety set
in and magnified into fury. I couldn’t speak as vomit threatened to make an appearance.

I just stared into nothing as Simone answered for me, “I always assumed that she had a boy in the house while she was babysitting.”

“And the bruises?”

“I
’ve seen the bruises. Omari noticed them too,” Simone told the officer. “But I never thought Tiana would do such a thing.”

“Figure it out and press charges against that bitch,” I spit.

The officer and Simone looked at me alarmingly.

“Tiana is like family to you,” Simone told me. “Officer, accidents happen, and I am sure that
’s all those bruises were.” Then she looked at me again. “Babe, you can’t be serious.”

“Figure it out,” I told the officer. “Do what you gotta do.”

Ironically, two days after Dahlia passed I pulled up in front of the spot on Riverdale and saw Eboni standing in the yard talking to Capone.

No matter the bullshit she was on right before Aeysha
got killed, admittedly it was good to see her. Her presence reminded me of Aeysha, of good times and a place in time that I would have loved to go back to. I had to hide my happiness to see Eboni since Simone was with me. We were at the spot to get some more of my things to take back to her place.

“Oh, there he go right there,” I heard Capone tell her as me and Simone hopped out of the car.

Both Eboni and I attempted to look at each other nonchalantly because we could feel Simone looking on curiously.

I introduced them to each other
while praying for no jealous beef from either one of them. “Simone, this is Eboni, my old neighbor. She was Aeysha’s friend.”

“Hi,” Simone told her quickly as she barely waved.
“Nice to meet you.”

Eboni looked at her curiously. I knew that she probably felt some type of way because I was with another woman so soon after Aeysha
’s death.

“I
’m going in the house, babe. It’s cold,” Simone told me. Before she could say anything else, before I could respond, she quickly walked off and was heading into the house.

“I
’ll give y’all some privacy,” Capone told me as he followed Simone.

Eboni continued to look
suspiciously as Capone walked towards the crib. I just knew that she was about to give me an earful about having a new woman, but frankly I didn’t owe Eboni shit. She hadn’t been the most loyal friend to Aeysha, so she wasn’t really in the position to say shit.

But
as soon as the front door closed, Eboni told me, “I know her.”

“Who?”

“Simone. I know her from somewhere,” she answered with the oddest look on her face. She looked confused, but determined; like she was certain that she knew what the fuck she was talking about.

“From where?”

“I don’t really know. Can’t put my finger on it.”

“Maybe she just has a familiar face.”

She thought for a second and then let it go. “Maybe so.”

Then I couldn
’t help but check Eboni out. I wasn’t lusting after her. I was just taking her in because, like I said, she reminded me of a yesterday that I wanted to go back to so desperately. I would have paid any amount of money and given my life over and over again just to go back to the days that I was in that two flat listening to Aeysha nag upstairs while Eboni’s kids ran rampant downstairs against an old noisy wood floor.

Eboni shied away from my stare. “Sorry for just popping up.”

“It’s cool. It’s actually good to see you. How you been?”

With a heavy sigh, she replied, “I
’m making it. I can’t complain.”

I couldn
’t help but notice how thick she was. She was always thick than a motherfucker, but she had obviously put on a few more pounds.

“You thick as hell.
You pregnant again?” I laughed to let her know that I was being playful.

“Whatever,
” she replied with a forced laugh.

“How did you know where I lived?”

“Just asked around the hood. You changed your number.”

“Yea, I did. I
’m sorry. I meant to give it to you before I moved.”

Eboni sighed and pulled an envelope out of her purse. “Here. I printed out some pictures of Aeysha that I had in my phone. I thought you might want them.”

I could see tears of sorrow in Eboni’s eyes. She was doing a bad job of fighting them back. She took Aeysha’s death just as bad as I did. Despite the bullshit that she and I were on, she loved Aeysha and I know she did. Her lust for me just led her to do some dirty shit that she regretted to that day. Guilt and regret was all over her face. She still mourned Aeysha’s death, and she still mourned her own self respect that was lost when she played her friend so dirty.

I mourned the same.

“How is Dahlia doing?”

I had been so transfixed in this temporary trip back to the past that Eboni
’s presence was taking me on that I almost forgot my fucked up present.

I hated to tell her. I put my hands in my pockets. I rocked back and forth trying to soothe my own grief. “She passed.”

“What?!” Eboni was beside herself.

The tears that once teetered at the doorway of her eyelids fell out. I reached out and hugged her. I held her tight
. Her cries were muffled into the leather of my Moncler coat.

“What happened?”

“Crib death,” I reluctantly told her.

I let her go and reached into my pocket for my phone. After going into the photo gallery, I began to show Eboni the hundreds of pictures that I had of Dahlia.

“Oh my God,” she said with an amazed and adoring grin. “She had your eyes, but she looked just like Aeysha.”

“Yea, she did. She was beautiful.”

“Can you send me some of those?”

“Sure. Here.”

I handed her my phone and let her go through the pictures and send them to herself as we caught up and talked. She caught me up on what was happening with folks I knew on the block that I once lived on. She told me about the bad ass kids that moved above her in my old apartment. She shared with me how her kids were doing, how they were growing up so fast and often asked about me and Aeysha.

We talked until snow began to fall and we
were forced to take cover. I walked her to her car, honestly feeling like I didn’t want her to leave. Like I said, she put me in the mind of Aeysha.

I just didn
’t want that feeling to leave.